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OF ENGLISH TEXTS 
GENERAL EDITOR 

HENRY VAN DYKE 

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ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



EDITED BY 



ANDREW S. DRAPER, LL.B., LL.D. 

COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION FOR THE STATE OF NEW YORK 




NEW YORK . : • CINCINNATI • : • CHICAGO 

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A 



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Copyright, 191 1, by 
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Entered at Stationers' Hall, Lomx>M. 



SELECTIONS FROM ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
K. P. 1 



©Cl,A20-,lo8 J 



PREFACE BY THE GENERAL 
EDITOR 

This series of books aims, first, to give the English 
texts required for entrance to college in a form which 
shall make them clear, interesting, and helpful to those 
who are beginning the study of literature ; and, second, 
to supply the knowledge which the student needs to 
pass the entrance examination. For these two reasons 
it is called The Gateway Series. 

The poems, plays, essays, and stories in these small 
volumes are treated, first of all, as works of literature, 
which were written to be read and enjoyed, not to be 
parsed and scanned and pulled to pieces. A short life 
of the author is given, and a portrait, in order to help 
the student to know the real person who wrote the 
book. The introduction tells what it is about, and 
how it was written, and where the author got the idea, 
and what it means. The notes at the foot of the page 
are simply to give the sense of the hard words so that 
.'th€ student can read straight on without turning to a 
dictionary. The other notes, at the end of the book, 
explain difficulties and allusions and fine points. 

5 



6 Preface by the General Editor 

The editors are chosen because of their thorough 
training and special fitness to deal with the books 
committed to them, and because they agree with this 
idea of what a Gateway Series ought to be. They 
express, in each case, their own views of the books 
which they edit. Simplicity, thoroughness, shortness, 
and clearness, — these, we hope, will be the marks of 
the series. 

HENRY VAN DYKE. 



PREFACE 

The appreciation of Lincoln has grown so great 
that there is no need of excuse for sending forth another 
book concerning him. This little volume presents 
some new thoughts about him, and contains some of 
his addresses, public papers, and letters which are not 
as easily available to the ordinary reader as are others 
of his writings which can hardly be said to have supe- 
rior historic interest, earmarks of the genius of states- 
manship, or literary merit. 

The special editor is indebted to his secretary, 
Mrs. Honore H. Greene, for help in the selection and 
arrangement of material and in the proofreading, and 
to Mr. Gilbert S. Blakely of the Morris High School, 
New York City, for the preparation of the notes. 

Acknowledgment is also made to the Century Com- 
pany, for permission to reprint the selections in this 
volume from " The Complete Works of Abraham Lin- 
coln," edited by John G. Nicolay and John Hay. 

ANDREW S. DRAPER. 
Albany, New York. 



CONTENTS 

Introduction •••••••• 

Chronological Table 

Lincoln's Addresses and Letters: — 

Letter to Robert Allen — June 21, 1836 . 

Letter to W. G. Anderson — October 31, 1840 

Speech in the United States House of Representatives 

(Mexican War Speech) — January 12, 1848 
Letter to William H. Herndon — February 15, 1848 
Address at Cooper Institute — February 27, i860 . 
Letters to W. H. Seward — December 8, i860 
Farewell Address at Springfield — February ii, 1861 
Address in Independence Hall, Philadelphia — February 

22, 1861 

First Inaugural Address — March 4, 1861 

Letter to Schuyler Colfax — March 8, 1 861 . t . 

Reply to Secretary Seward's Memorandum — April i 

1861 ..... 

Letter to General Scott — April I, 1861 . 

Reply to a Committee from the Virginia Convention — 

April 13, 1861 

Letter to Gustavus V. Fox — May i, 1861 
Letter to Colonel Ellsworth's Parents — May 25, 1861 
Letter to General Fremont — September 2, 1861 
Letter to O. H. Browning — September 22, 1861 , 
Letter to Archbishop Hughes — October 21, 1861 . 
Letter to General McClemand — November 10, 1861 
8 



PAGE 
II 

23 



26 

43 
45 
74 
76 

76 

78 
92 

93 
94 

95 
97 
98 

99 
100 
103 
104 



Contents 9 

PAGB 

Letter to General G. B. McClellan (with Memorandum) 

— February 3, 1862 

Message to Congress recommending Compensated Eman- 
cipation — March 6, 1862 

Letter to Henry J. Raymond — March 9, 1862 

Letter to Dr. S. B. Tobey — March 19, 1862 . 

Letter to General G. B. McClellan — April 9, 1862 

Telegram to R. Yates and William Butler — April lo, 
1862 

Telegram to General G. B. McClellan — May i, 1862 

Telegrams to General J. C. Fremont — May 24, 1862 

Telegrams to General R. Saxton — May 25, 1862 . 

Telegram to General G. A. McCall — May 31, 1862. 

Appeal to favour Compensated Emancipation, read by the 
President to Border-State Representatives — July 12, 
1862 

Letter to J. M. Clay — August 9, 1862 . 

Letter to Horace Greeley (in regard to saving the Union) 

— August 22, 1862 . . 
Reply to a Committee from the Religious Denominations 

of Chicago, asking the President to issue a Proclama- 
tion of Emancipation — September 13, 1862 

Letter to Carl Schurz — November 24, 1862 . 

Final Emancipation Proclamation — January i, 1863 

Letter to Governor Seymour — March 23, 1863 

Announcement of Nevi^s from Gettysburg — July 4, 1863 

Letter to General Grant — July 13, 1863 

Letter to J. H. Hackett — August 17, 1^63 . 

Letter transmitting Original Draft of Emancipation Proc- 
lamation — October 26, 1863 .... 

Letter to J. H. Hackett — November 2, 1863 . 

Address at the Dedication of the Gettysburg National 
Cemetery — November 19, 1863 .... 

Memorandum about Churches — March 4, 1864 



lo Contents 

PAGE 

Letter to M. P. Gentry — March 13, 1864 . . .137 
Remarks on closing a Sanitary Fair in Washington — 

March 18, 1864 . 137 

Letter to Mrs. Horace Mann — April 5, 1864. . .138 
Address at Sanitary Fair in Baltimore — April 18, 1864 . 139 
Letter to General U. S. Grant — April 30, 1864 . . 142 
Endorsement of Letter of Governor Carney — May 14, 

1864 143 

Letter to Mrs. Bixby — November 21, 1864 . . . 144 
Second Inaugural Address — March 4, 1865 . . . 144 
Last Public Address — April II, 1865 . . . .147 

Notes i55 



INTRODUCTION 

In the thought of the world Lincoln grows greater 
and greater with the passing of the years. The universal 
interest in all that concerns his career becomes more and 
more acute. The quest for information about all he did 
and all he thought has been incessant and untiring and 
ingenious. It cannot be that there are many more inci- 
dents of his Hfe to be discovered and sustained by good 
evidence, although it is likely enough that further search 
for the information which justified and the intellectual 
processes by which he reached well-known conclusions 
will be rewarded. Probably all of the physical facts 
associated with his life that will ever be known are 
already known. The rest depend upon the reasoning of 
the judge, and are matters of opinion. 

To my mind there does not appear the slightest sign of 
the popular reaction which a few have thought they saw. 
The common thought of the people dismisses many stories 
that have been related of Lincoln, and discounts much 
that has been said of him, and steadily deepens in its 
appreciation of him. The simple facts that are well 
known appeal more and more to the feehngs of the multi- 
tude. It is not those things which are doubtful or 



12 Introduction 

mysterious, but the simple and sober facts of his modest 
and serious life and the irresistible outworking of his 
logical mind, that make the character of Lincoln more 
and yet more impressive with the unfolding years. 

In this little book we are to set forth the greatest of his 
writings. They will be placed in chronological order. 
We shall see that he dealt with a definite though some- 
what comprehensive subject. It involved the legal phases 
of his country's doings about African slavery. All else 
that he did bears only upon the personality of an interest- 
ing because unique character, and is subordinate to and 
far below the doings which place the progressive world 
under obHgations to him. We shall see that associated 
with the extreme plainness of the man and the marked 
simpHcity of his life there was logical reasoning that is 
inexorable and unanswerable, expressed in a literary style 
that has of itself impressed the world and is distinctly 
and completely his own. And we shall see that his legal 
reasoning crystaUized and solidified, and that his manner 
of expression became yet more chaste and strong and dis- 
tinctive as he moved on from the opening to the culmi- 
nation of his career. 

Seeing all this we necessarily ask the reasons for it, and 
we must find them not in the mysteries but in the verities 
of his Hfe. One must now look upon Lincoln according 
to his own lights, his own views of men, and his own 
understanding of events. The simple view of a simple 
life, which through its very simplicity and its singular 
opportunity became great, is likely to be the truer one. 



Introduction 13 

In childhood Lincoln was poor, deplorably poor. His 
father moved easily and was certainly unsubstantial. It 
is quite apparent that more and better than this may be 
said of his mother. The boy grew up tall and lank, but 
sinewy and strong. He lived almost wholly in the 
open, and engaged in the vocations of the farm, the 
country store, and the near-by river. He was at times 
exclusive and moody, and at other times he mixed freely 
in the primitive games and discussions of the neighbour- 
hood. He was never devoid of humour. He was aggres- 
sive enough even in his youth to make an early impression 
upon a rude civilization. His absolute honesty was 
always acknowledged. His spirit was warm in its kindh- 
ness, exact in its sincerity, and reverent towards the 
higher things of life. From first to last he was a very 
plain American boy and man, intensely human, and he 
was always in political and professional activities which 
often make flaws or find fissures in human nature. But 
the most penetrating search into all he did has revealed 
no selfishness or guile among the splendid ingredients 
of his character. 

He was educated. Any other view would be absurd. 
Of course he was without the finish and poHsh, the 
superficial artfulness, which too many think the ex- 
clusive evidence of education ; but, better than that, his 
mind was trained into an efficient machine. It could 
gather and digest facts and draw conclusions and express 
them in a convincing way. Surely that is education. He 
was self-educated. He went to school but little. What 



14 Introduction 

he learned he dug out himself, and he dug out not a little, 
but a great deal. He brought himself to square with 
knowledge that was exact. He knew as much of math- 
ematics as any one in his region. He mastered gram- 
mar as well as mathematics. He was much interested in 
such exact development of the natural sciences as there 
had been up to his time. He read Shakespeare and 
Burns. He had a propensity for poetry, particularly the 
" little sad songs," as he called them. He developed a 
phenomenal memory, could recall all he had read, and 
repeat verses and passages almost word for word. So 
his mind became not only trained, but stored. He ac- 
quired rich intellectual stores, and he also acquired the 
power to draw upon and use them. Relatively speaking — 
and the whole world is relative — he became intellectually 
wealthy, and noted in the region round about for his 
mental powers and resources. 

The further progress of his career was orderly and 
natural. There is little of the mysterious, and nothing of 
the supernatural, about it. It may be summed up in a 
sentence. He knew the fundamentals of the law and the 
groundwork of society ; he liked politics ; he became an 
expert on the relations of slavery to the pohtical philosophy 
and institutions of the Republic ; he foresaw the only 
attitude which his country could take upon that question 
and endure ; he was able to make that plain to plain 
people : all the rest "did itself," for it was only the nec- 
essary result. 

Lincoln was a fine lawyer. He tried many cases and 



Introduction 15 

argued many appeals ; he had a large measure of pro- 
fessional success. He did not insult the judge, browbeat 
witnesses, quarrel with counsel, anger the jury, get beaten 
and then mislead and swindle his cHents. He had care 
about the causes he espoused, but when he took up a bur- 
den he carried it to the end of the journey. There were 
not so many precedents in the law books in his day as 
now, and not so many law books. He would not have 
paid so very much attention to them, if there had been, any 
more than the very great lawyers do now. His legal rea- 
soning was of the kind that could stand alone. He 
knew the sources, the philosophy, and the spirit and in- 
tent of the law ; and this knowledge, with his powers of 
application, carried him to an invulnerable position as to 
the justness of his cause. Seeing that clearly, he used all 
plainness and exactness of speech to compel the court or 
the jury to see it as he did. 

Whether or not Mr. Lincoln was a " politician " depends 
upon the definition of the word. He was unquestionably 
fond of pubHc life. He clearly enjoyed political cam- 
paigns. He looked after the selections of delegates, the 
nominations of candidates, and the declarations of con- 
ventions. He was a member of the Legislature several 
times, and of Congress once. He went through a long 
and notable canvass of Illinois for the office of United 
States Senator and was beaten by Senator Douglas. But 
it never occurs to any one that all this was because he 
wanted office. It was all in consequence of his interest 
in the political Hfe and health of the country. It was 



l6 Introduction 

because his legal and logical mind tended very naturally 
to the making of laws, and became expert upon the politi- 
cal structure of the Republic. He was chosen to the 
presidency because he was the first to reconcile the moral 
feelings of the greater number of his countrymen with the 
fundamental laws of the country upon the momentous 
question of slavery ; because he first declared the attitudes 
which the Republic must take upon that subject if it were 
to endure. The inherent sincerity of the man, his fascina- 
tion for political philosophy, his new and definite position 
upon the slavery question, and his remarkable gifts in writ- 
ing and speaking his opinions, forced him into the forum 
and carried him to the presidency, in spite of the fact that 
he looked upon public life as something of a drawback 
and disadvantage to himself. 

And what was his attitude upon the burning and con- 
suming question of slavery? He was born in a slave 
state, understood the Southern people perfectly, and had 
much in common with them, but he believed that no man 
should " eat his bread in the sweat of another man's brow," 
and hoped for the time when **all men everywhere might 
be free." There were good men, and many of them, 
who would abohsh slavery, at once, by law and if neces- 
sary by force, on the ground that it was an unmitigated evil 
and could justly be treated in no other way ; but Mr. Lin- 
coln was not one of them. He did not locaHze responsi- 
bility for slavery in the South. He held, and truly, that 
the whole country had in the beginning participated in 
the evil, that it was legally recognized and approved by the 



Introduction 17 

convention which framed the Federal Constitution, and 
that if this had not been done there would have been no 
"more perfect Union." He saw that economic conditions 
had defeated the common hope that it would dwindle 
and perish which was indulged by the fathers of the Re- 
public. He thought that, whether repugnant to moral 
sense or not, the laws of the country conferred a legal 
right of property in slaves, and that laws were to be re- 
spected so long as they were laws. His lawyer-mind saw 
that slave-owners had property in slaves which was given 
them by the laws of the country, and he was opposed to 
taking this legal right away from them without paying 
them for the loss they would sustain. He was reluctant 
about taking it away even with compensation, if without 
their consent. Moreover, he foresaw that it was not 
possible to pass and enforce laws doing away with 
slavery, without bloodshed and without the real danger 
that the Union might be dissolved and democratic prog- 
ress receive a blow from which it might not recover in 
many years. Therefore he was opposed to the forcible 
abolition of slavery at the time. So far as rights in slave 
property had been given by law, he would uphold them. 
As to slavery in the slave states, he would wait. 

But slavery was more aggressive than freedom. Under 
one pretext or another, and with one plan of procedure 
or another, it sought to enter free territory. Its spokes- 
men were able, its sophistries were specious, and its 
determination was of the kind which reahzes that its very 
life is at stake. It was coming to be that the atmosphere 

SELEC. FROM LINCOLN — 7 



I B Introduction 

of the world was charged with the feeling that human 
bondage was a moral wrong and was doomed. The 
inconsistency of it in a new world Republic dedicated 
to the principle that all men are entitled to equal rights 
under the law was humiliating. It was beginning to 
look as though either slavery or freedom would have to 
go, in America at least. The expansion of the spirit of 
freedom only exasperated the slave system and made it 
more desperate. If the country was to become all slave 
or all free, the slave states were determined that it should 
become all slave. For half a century, in one way and 
another, it had been able to maintain at least a voting 
equilibrium in the Senate between slave states and free; 
it had managed to have a president from the South, or a 
" northern man with southern sympathies," practically 
all bf that time ; and it had secured, perhaps not so 
illogically as the North thought, the decisions of the 
Supreme Court which extended legal rights over slaves 
taken into or fleeing into free territory. 

All this and even more the North was disposed to ac- 
quiesce in reluctantly, rather than force a course which 
any could hold to be the unjust cause of a sectional war. 
But when Senator Douglas, of Illinois, the great leader 
of the poHtical party that for half a century had been 
dominant in the nation, cast aside the compromises and 
agreements which had been the doubtful basis of a 
semblance -of peace for a generation, and secured legisla- 
tion giving slavery the legal opportunity to enter the 
free territories — the common lands of all the people — 



Introduction 19 

and thus acquire the political control in the nation and 
a preponderance of votes in the Senate, Lincoln shattered 
the sophistry of the senator and set the stakes beyond 
which, war or no war, slavery ought not to be allowed to 
go by so much as the breadth of a hair. He did it in a 
state in the politics of which Douglas had been absolute 
master for a score of years; in a poUtical campaign 
which took every last voter of the state into considera- 
tion ; and with a result which showed that convictions 
were looking for opportunities to limit if not destroy the 
slave system, and which made the new tribune of the 
people a logical and inevitable candidate for the presi- 
dency. The returns of the presidential election withdrew 
eventualities from the hands of lawmakers and replaced 
them in the hands of the God of truth and freedom, as 
well as in the hands of the God of battles. 

So much it has seemed necessary to say to recall to 
the reader's mind the setting of Lincoln's addresses and 
state papers. The purity of his literary style is entranc- 
ing. His effort to make what he wanted to say plain to 
any understanding in the fewest possible words is always 
apparent. Before he reached his zenith he had read 
many of the standard authors ; he was fond of poetry ; 
he could quote by the hour ; but he drew upon literature 
hardly at all to embeUish what he wrote and what he 
said. He had been a student of law and of politics, and 
was familiar with all that had been said upon the question 
of slavery ; he had read the fathers of the Republic, and 
was familiar with Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, as he 



20 Introduction 

certainly was with Theodore Parker and Giddings and 
Greeley and Seward and Sumner ; but he called none of 
them to the aid of his writings and his speeches. The 
substance of all he said was that slavery was fundamentally 
wrong ; that while it might be tolerated within existing 
territorial limitations it must not be allowed to extend 
over an inch of free territory ; that the progress of the 
world demanded that the union of the states be preserved 
at whatever hazard ; that he would not bring on a war to 
abolish slavery, but would resist one to sever the Union ; 
and that all the rest was necessarily in the keeping of the 
Almighty. 

If Lincoln did not ornament his writings with quota- 
tions from the great orators and authors, he did not blem- 
ish them by the arts of the demagogue or by the use of 
the commonplace. Of course, before he came to the 
presidency his work was with a plain, hardy, pioneer 
people, and his illustrations were of a kind which would 
illustrate to them. But there was nothing of the com- 
monplace in that ; it was precisely that which trained his 
great power to express his convictions in ways to compel 
all people to understand. He had a keen sense of 
humour, and it helped him. He knew more anecdotes 
than most men, and in conversation he had no trouble in 
recalling one to aptly enforce his point ; but he used 
them not at all in his writings and most sparingly in his 
political addresses. In the great joint debates with Sena- 
tor Douglas, neither of the speakers related a story. 

Lincoln had no thought of producing " literature," al- 



Introduction di 

though all he said and wrote makes fine reading now. 
His early political speeches show not a little ridicule and 
irony, a directness of thrust and a quickness of repartee 
which are of course absent from his later state papers, but 
there is nothing which might better have been omitted. 
Although his responsibilities became heavier and his 
words correspondingly serious as his career advanced, 
there is a uniformity of outlook and method and style 
from the beginning to the end of his career; and there is 
also a steadily growing consecration to a cause which was 
pathetically and completely crowned by the manner of 
his death. 

To the graver and more stately public addresses which 
are best known we have added several more informal ad- 
dresses to delegations, with which the people are much 
less familiar, and a considerable number of letters, of 
which by far the greater number of people know nothing 
at all. To my mind these less known papers, hastily 
prepared and without thought of such use as we are 
making of them now, prove Lincoln's superior mind 
and magnanimous soul even more completely than do 
the more dignified state papers which are better known. 
They also go even further to show that his masterful 
and distinctive English style was a common habit. His 
grasp of fundamental principles never hesitated, his logic 
never faltered, his good, pure expression was as common 
as any other habit of his Hfe. 

The selections for this book have been made in the 
hope of exemphfying both the uniform strength and 



12 Introduction 

beauty of his writings from the viewpoint of literature, 
and the compelling convictions and vital reasoning which 
did more than all else to make them so. From the very 
beginning his words were marked by much feeling, guided 
and governed by the clearest and closest legal reasoning ; 
but with his coming to the presidency they are en- 
shrouded in unavoidable pathos and sorrow, and through- 
out his administration they are bowed down with the 
griefs of his suffering country and countrymen, while they 
are uplifted by his trust in God and his unyielding con- 
fidence that democracy shall in some way endure. And 
what wonder, when of all men he realized that the accept- 
ance of his reasoning and his conclusions meant war ; 
when better than any other he knew that his inaugura- 
tion, and the consequent discharge of official duty as he 
saw it, made a dreadful war inevitable and immediate ; 
and when his faith in the justice of the cause, in the 
great mission of the country, and in the overruling guid- 
ance -of the Almighty was of the kind that made it nec- 
essary to go forward. In the light of all this he must be 
read much and often to be even partially understood. 
And he must be understood by his country if the coun- 
try is to grow in strength, for it was given to him above 
other men to lay the legal and moral foundations of its 
strength. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Born .... 
Moved to Indiana . 
Moved to Illinois . 
Served in Black Hawk War 
Unsuccessful Candidate for the 
Member of Legislature . 
Admitted to the Bar 
Married .... 
Elected to Congress 
Unsuccessful Candidate for the 
Lincoln-Douglas debates . 
Nominated for the Presidency 
Inaugurated . 
Fall of Fort Sumter 
First call for volunteer troops 
Emancipation Proclamation 
Re-elected President 
Fall of Richmond . 
Surrender of Lee 
Assassination . 



. Feb. 12, 1809 
1816 
1830 
1832 
Ilhnois Legislature 1832 

. 1834-1835 
1836 
1842 
1846 

U. S. Senate . 1858 
. . 1858 
i860 
March 4, 1861 
April 13, 1 86 1 
April 15, 1 86 1 
. Jan. I, 1863 
Nov., 1864 
. April 3, 1865 
. April 9, 1S65 
April 14, 1865 



23 



ADDRESSES AND LETTERS 

June 21, 1836. — Letter to Robert Allen 

New Salem, June 21, 1836. 

Dear Colonel : I am told that during my absence last 
week you passed through this place, and stated pubUcly 
that you were in possession of a fact or facts which, if 5 
known to the public, would entirely destroy the prospects 
of N. W. Edwards and myself at the ensuing election ; 
but that, through favour to us, you should forbear to di- 
vulge them. No one has needed favours more than I, and, 
generally, few have been less unwilling to accept them ; 10 
but in this case favour to me would be injustice to the pub- 
lic, and therefore I must beg your pardon for declining it. 
That I once had the confidence of the people of Sangamon, 
is sufificiently evident ; and if I have since done anything, 
either by design or misadventure, which if known would 15 
subject me to a forfeiture of that confidence, he that knows 
of that thing, and conceals it, is a traitor to his country's 
interest. 

I find myself wholly unable to form any conjecture of 
what fact or facts, real or supposed, you spoke ; but my 20 
opinion of your veracity will not permit me for a moment 
to doubt that you at least believed what you said. I am 
flattered with the personal regard you manifested for me ; 
but I do hope that, on more mature reflection, you will 
view the public interest as a paramount consideration, and 25 

25 



L 



iG Addresses and Letters 

therefore determine to let the worst come. I here assure 
you that the candid statement of facts on your part, how- 
ever low it may sink me, shall never break the tie of per- 
sonal friendship between us. I wish an answer to this, 
5 and you are at liberty to pubHsh both, if you choose. 

Very respectfully, 
Col. Robert Allen. A. Lincoln. 

October 31, 1840. — Letter to W. G. Anderson 

Lawrenceville, October 31, 1840. 
10 W. G. Anderson. 

Dear Sir: Your note of yesterday is received. In the 

difficulty between us of which you speak, you say you think 

I was the aggressor. I do not think I was. You say my 

" words imported insult." I meant them as a fair set-off 

15 to your own statements, and not otherwise ; and in that 
hght alone I now wish you to understand them. You ask 
for my present "feelings on the subject." I entertain no 
unkind feelings to you, and none of any sort upon the 
subject, except a sincere regret that I permitted myself to 

20 get into such an altercation. Yours, etc., 

A. Lincoln. 

January 12, 1848. — Speech in the United States 

House of Representatives 
Mr. Chairman: Some if not all the gentlemen on the 
25 other side of the House who have addressed the com- 
mittee within the last two days have spoken rather com- 
plainingly, if I have rightly understood them, of the vote 



Addresses and Letters 27 

given a week or ten days ago declaring that the war with 
Mexico was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally com- 
menced by the President. I admit that such a vote should 
not be given in mere party wantonness, and that the one 
given is justly censurable, if it have no^ other or better 5 
foundation. I am one of those who joined in that vote ; 
and I did so under my best impression of the truth of 
the case. How I got this impression, and how it may 
possibly be remedied, I will now try to show. When the 
wat began, it was my opinion that all those who because 10 
of knowing too little, or because of knowing too much, 
could not conscientiously oppose the conduct of the Presi- 
dent in the beginning of it should nevertheless, as good 
citizens and patriots, remain silent on that point, at least 
till the war should be ended. Some leading Democrats, 15 
including ex- President Van Buren, have taken this same 
view, as I understand them ; and I adhered to it and 
acted upon it, until since I took my seat here ; and I 
think I should still adhere to it were it not that the Presi- 
dent and his friends will not allow it to be so. Besides 20 
the continual effort of the President to argue every silent 
vote given for supplies into an endorsement of the justice 
and wisdom of his conduct ; besides that singularly can- 
did paragraph in his late message in which he tells us that 
Congress with great unanimity had declared that " by the 25 
act of the Republic of Mexico, a state of war exists between 
that Government and the United States," when the same 
journals that informed him of this also informed him that 
when that declaration stood disconnected from the ques- 



28 Addresses and Letters 

tion of supplies sixty-seven in the House, and not fourteen 
merely, voted against it ; besides this open attempt to 
prove by telling the truth what he could not prove by 
telling the whole truth — demanding of all who will not 

5 submit to be misrepresented, in justice to themselves, to 
speak out, — besides all this, one of my colleagues [Mr. 
Richardson] at a very early day in the session brought in 
a set of resolutions expressly endorsing the original justice 
of the war on the part of the President. Upon these 

lo resolutions when they shall be put on their passage I shall 
be compelled to vote ; so that I cannot be silent if I 
would. Seeing this, I went about preparing myself to 
give the vote understandingly when it should come. I 
carefully examined the President's message, to ascertain 

15 what he himself had said and proved upon the point. 
The result of this examination was to make the impres- 
sion that, taking for true all the President states as facts, 
he falls far short of proving his justification ; and that the 
President would have gone farther with his proof if it had 

20 not been for the small matter that the truth would not per- 
mit him. Under the impression thus made I gave the 
vote before mentioned. I propose now to give concisely 
the process of the examination I made, and how I reached 
the conclusion I did. , The President, in his first war 

25 message of May, 1846, declares that the soil was ours on 
which hostilities were commenced by Mexico, and he 
repeats that declaration almost in the same language in 
each successive annual message, thus showing that he 
deems that point a highly essential one. In the impor- 



Addresses and Letters 29 

tance of that point I entirely agree with the President. 
To my judgement it is the very point upon which he 
should be justified, or condemned. In his message of 
December, 1846, it seems to have occurred to him, as 
is certainly true, that title — ownership — to soil or 5 
anything else is not a simple fact, but is a conclusion fol- 
lowing on one or more simple facts; and that it was in- 
cumbent upon him to present the facts from which he 
concluded the soil was ours on which the first blood of 
the war was shed. 10 

Accordingly, a little below the middle of page twelve 
in the message last referred to he enters upon that task ; 
forming an issue and introducing testimony, extending the 
whole to a little below the middle of page fourteen. Now, 
I propose to try to show that the whole of this — issuers 
and evidence — is from beginning to end the sheerest 
deception. The issue, as he presents it, is in these words : 
" But there are those who, conceding all this to be true, 
assume the ground that the true western boundary of 
Texas is the Nueces,^ instead of the Rio Grande ; and 20 
that, therefore, in marching our army to the east bank of 
the latter river, we passed the Texas line and invaded the 
territory of Mexico." Now this issue is made up of two 
affirmatives and no negative. The main deception of it is 
that it assumes as true that one river or the other is nee- 25 
essarily the boundary ; and cheats the superficial thinker 
entirely out of the idea that possibly the boundary is some- 

1 A river from 50 to 100 miles to the east of the present Mexican 
border. 



JO Addresses and Letters 

where between the two, and not actually at either. A 
further deception is that it will let in evidence which 
a true issue would exclude. A true issue made by the 
President would be about as follows : " I say the soil was 

5 ours, on which the first blood was shed ; there are those 
who say it was not." 

I now proceed to examine the President's evidence as 
applicable to such an issue. When that evidence is an- 
alyzed, it is all included in the following propositions : — 

lo (i) That the Rio Grande was the western boundary of 
Louisiana as we purchased it of France in 1803. 

(2) That the Republic of Texas always claimed the 
Rio Grande as her western boundary. 

(3) That by various acts she had claimed it on paper. 
15 (4) That Santa Anna^ in his treaty with Texas recog- 
nized the Rio Grande as her boundary. 

(5) That Texas before, and the United States after, 
annexation had exercised jurisdiction beyond the Nueces 
— between the two rivers. 
20 (6) That our Congress understood the boundary of 
Texas to extend beyond the Nueces. 

Now for each of these in its turn. His first item is that 
the Rio Grande was the western boundary of Louisiana, 
as we purchased it of France in 1803; and seeming to 
25 expect this to be disputed, he argues over the amount of 
nearly a page to prove it true ; at the end of which he 
lets us know that by the treaty of 1819 we sold to Spain 
the whole country from the Rio Grande eastward to the 
1 The President of Mexico and Commander-in-Chief of her army. 



Addresses and Letters 31 

Sabine. Now, admitting for the present that the Rio 
Grande was the boundary of Louisiana, what, under 
heaven, had that to do with the present boundary between 
us and Mexico? How, Mr. Chairman, the Hne that once 
divided your land from mine can still be the boundary 5 
between us after I have sold my land to you is to me 
beyond all comprehension. And how any man, with an 
honest purpose only of proving the truth, could ever have 
thought of introducing such a fact to prove such an issue 
is equally incomprehensible. His next piece of evidence 10 
is that " the Republic of Texas always claimed this river 
(Rio Grande) as her western boundary." That is not 
true, in fact. Texas has claimed it, but she has not 
always claimed it. There is at least one distinguished 
exception. Her State constitution — the repubhc's most 15 
solemn and well-considered act ; that which may, without 
impropriety, be called her last will and testament, revok- 
ing all others — makes no such claim. But suppose she 
had always claimed it. Has not Mexico always claimed 
the contrary? So that there is but claim against claim, 20 
leaving nothing proved until we get back of the claims 
and find which has the better foundation. Though not in 
the order in which the President presents his evidence, I 
now consider that class of his statements which are in 
substance nothing more than that Texas has, by various 25 
acts of her Convention and Congress, claimed the Rio 
Grande as her boundary, on paper. I mean here what 
he says about the fixing of the Rio Grande as her bound- 
ary in her old constitution (not her State constitution), 



32 Addresses and Letters 

about forming congressional districts, counties, etc. Now 
all of this is but naked claim ; and what I have already 
said about claims is strictly applicable to this. If I should 
claim your land by word of mouth, that certainly would not 
5 make it mine ; and if I were to claim it by a deed which 
I had made myself, and with which you had had nothing 
to do, the claim would be quite the same in substance — 
or rather, in utter nothingness. I next consider the 
President's statement that Santa Anna in his treaty with 

lo Texas recognized the Rio Grande as the western bound- 
ary of Texas. Besides the position so often taken, that 
Santa Anna while a prisoner of war, a captive, could not 
bind Mexico by a treaty, which I deem conclusive — be- 
sides this, I wish to say something in relation to this treaty, 

15 so called by the President, with Santa Anna. If any man 
would like to be amused by a sight of that little thing 
which the President calls by that big name, he can 
have it by turning to Niks' s Regis fer,^ Vol. L, p. 336. 
And if any one should suppose that Niles's Register is 

20 a curious repository of so mighty a document as a solemn 
treaty between nations, I can only say that I learned to a 
tolerable degree of certainty, by inquiry at the State De- 
partment, that the President himself never saw it anywhere 
else. By the way, I believe I should not err if I were to 

25 declare that during the first ten years of the existence of 
that document it was never by anybody called a treaty — 
that it was never so called till the President, in his ex- 

1 A weekly publication devoted largely to politics and public 
affairs, published at Baltimore. 



Addresses and Letters 23 

tremity, attempted by so calling it to wring something 
from it in justification of himself in connection with the 
Mexican war. It has none of the distinguishing features 
of a treaty. It does not call itself a treaty. Santa Anna 
does not therein assume to bind Mexico ; he assumes s 
only to act as the President-Commander-in-Chief of the 
Mexican army and navy ; stipulates that the then present 
hostiUties should cease, and that he would not himself take 
up arms, nor influence the Mexican people to take up arms, 
against Texas during the existence of the war of indepen- lo 
dence. He did not recognize the independence of Texas ; 
he did not assume to put an end to the war, but clearly in- 
dicated his expectation of its continuance; he did not say 
one word about boundary, and, most probably, never 
thought of it. It is stipulated therein that the Mexican 15 
forces should evacuate the territory of Texas, passing to 
the other side of the Rio Grande; and in another article 
it is stipulated that, to prevent colHsions between the 
armies, the Texas army should not approach nearer than 
within five leagues — of what is not said, but clearly, from 20 
the object stated, it is of the Rio Grande. Now, if this 
is a treaty recognizing the Rio Grande as the boundary of 
Texas, it contains the singular features of stipulating that 
Texas shall not go within five leagues of her own boundary. 

Next comes the evidence of Texas before annexation, 25 
and the United States afterward, exercising jurisdiction 
beyond the Nueces and between the two rivers. This 
actual exercise of jurisdiction is the very class or quality 
of evidence we want. It is excellent so far as it goes; 

SELEC. FROM LINCOLN — ^ 



34 Addresses and Letters 

but does it go far enough ? He tells us it went beyond 
the Nueces, but he does not tell us it went to the Rio 
Grande. He tells us jurisdiction was exercised be- 
tween the two rivers, but he does not tell us it was exer- 
5 cised over all the territory between them. Some simple- 
minded people think it is possible to cross one river and 
go beyond it without going all the way to the next, that 
jurisdiction may be exercised between two rivers without 
covering all the country between them. I know a man, 

lo not very unlike myself, who exercises jurisdiction over a 
piece of land between the Wabash and the Mississippi; 
and yet so far is this from being all there is between those 
rivers that it is just one hundred and fifty-two feet long 
by fifty feet wide, and no part of it much within a hundred 

IS miles of either. He has a neighbour between him and the 
Mississippi — that is, just across the street, in that direc- 
tion — whom I am sure he could neither persuade nor 
force to give up his habitation ; but which nevertheless 
he could certainly annex, if it were to be done by merely 

20 standing on his own side of the street and claiming it, or 
even sitting down and writing a deed for it. 

But next the President tells us the Congress of the 
United States understood the State of Texas they admitted 
into the Union to extend beyond the Nueces. Well, I 

25 suppose they did. I certainly so understood it. But how 
far beyond ? That Congress did not understand it to ex- 
tend clear to the Rio Grande is quite certain, by the fact of 
their joint resolutions for admission expressly leaving all 
questions of boundary to future adjustment. And it 



Addresses and Letters ^^ 

may be added that Texas herself is proved to have had 
the same understanding of it that our Congress had, by 
the fact of the exact conformity of her new constitution to 
those resolutions. 

lam now through the whole of the President's evidence ; 5 
and it is a singular fact that if any one should declare the 
President sent the army into the midst of a settlement of 
Mexican people who had never submitted, by consent or 
by force, to the authority of Texas or of the United States, 
and that there and thereby the first blood of the war was 10 
shed, there is not one word in all the President has said 
which would either admit or deny the declaration. This 
strange omission it does seem to me could not have 
occurred but by design. My way of living leads me to be 
about the courts of justice ; and there I have sometimes 15 
seen a good lawyer, struggHng for his client's neck in a 
desperate case, employing every artifice to work round, 
befog, and cover up with many words some point arising 
in the case which he dared not admit and yet could not 
deny. Party bias may help to make it appear so, but 20 
with all the allowance I can make for such bias, it still 
does appear to me that just such, and from just such ne- 
cessity, is the President's struggle in this case. 

Some time after my colleague [Mr. Richardson] intro- 
duced the resolutions I have mentioned, I introduced a 25 
preamble, resolution, and interrogations, intended to 
draw the President out, if possible, on this hitherto 
untrodden ground. To show their relevancy, I pro- 
pose to state my understanding of the true rule for ascer- 



^6 Addresses and Letters 

taining the boundary between Texas and Mexico. It 
is that wherever Texas was exercising jurisdiction was hers ; 
and wherever Mexico was exercising jurisdiction was hers ; 
and that whatever separated the actual exercise of jurisdic- 
5 tion of the one from that of the other was the true bound- 
ary between them. If, as is probably true, Texas was 
exercising jurisdiction along the western bank of the 
Nueces, and Mexico was exercising it along the eastern 
bank of the Rio Grande, then neither river was the bound- 

lo ary ; but the uninhabited country between the two was. 
The extent of our territory in that region depended not on 
any treaty-fixed boundary (for no treaty had attempted it), 
but on revolution. Any people anywhere being inclined 
and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake 

15 off the existing government, and form a new one that 
suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred 
right — a right which we hope and believe is to liberate 
the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which 
the whole people of an existing government may choose 

20 to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may 
revolutionize and make their own of so much of the terri- 
tory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any 
portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a 
minority, intermingled with or near about them, who may 

25 oppose this movement. Such minority was precisely the 
case of the Tories of our own revolution. It is a quality 
of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws; but to 
break up both, and make new ones. 

As to the country now in question, we bought it of 



Addresses and Letters 37 

France in 1803, and solql it to Spain in 18 19, according to 
the President's statements. After this, all Mexico, includ- 
ing Texas, revolutionized against Spain ; and still later 
Texas revolutionized against Mexico. In my view, just so 
far as she carried her resolution by obtaining the actual, 5 
willing or unwilling, submission of the people, so far the 
country was hers, and no farther. Now, sir, for the purpose 
of obtaining the very best evidence as to whether Texas 
had actually carried her revolution to the place where the 
hostilities of the present war commenced, let the Presi- 10 
dent answer the interrogatories I proposed, as before 
mentioned, or some other similar ones. Let him answer 
fully, fairly, and candidly. Let him answer with facts and 
not with arguments. Let him remember he sits where 
Washington sat, and so remembering, let him answer 15 
as Washington would answer. As a nation should not, 
and the Almighty will not, be evaded, so let him attempt 
no evasion — no equivocation. And if, so answering, he 
can show that the soil was ours where the first blood of 
the war was shed, — that it was not within an inhabited 20 
country, or, if within such, that the inhabitants had sub- 
mitted themselves to the civil authority of Texas or of the 
United States, and that the same is true of the site of 
Fort Brown, — then I am with him for his justification. 
In that case I shall be most happy to reverse the vote I 25 
gave the other day. I have a selfish motive for desiring 
that the President may do this — I expect to gain some 
votes, in connection with the war, which, without his so 
doing, will be of doubtful propriety in my own judgement, 



38 Addresses and Letters 

but which will be free from the doubt if he does so. But 
if he can not or will not do this, — if on any pretence or 
no pretence he shall refuse or omit it — then I shall be 
fully convinced of what I more than suspect already — 
5 that he is deeply conscious of being in the wrong ; that 
he feels the blood of this war, like the blood of Abel,^ is 
crying to Heaven against him ; that originally having some 
strong motive — what, I will not stop now to give my 
opinion concerning — to involve the two countries in a 

ro war, and trusting to escape scrutiny by fixing the public 
gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory, — 
that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood ^ — 
that serpent's eye that charms to destroy, — he plunged 
into it, and has swept on and on till, disappointed in his 

15 calculation of the ease with which Mexico might be sub- 
dued, he now finds himself he knows not where. How- 
like the half-insane mumbling of a fever dream is the 
whole war part of his late message ! At one time telling 
us that Mexico has nothing whatever that we can get but 

20 territory ; at another showing us how we can support the 
war by levying contributions on Mexico. At one time 
urging the national honour, the security of the future, the 
prevention of foreign interference, and even the good of 
Mexico herself as among the objects of the war ; at an- 

25 other telling us that "to reject indemnity, by refusing to 

accept a cession of territory, would be to abandon all our 

just demands, and to wage the war bearing all its expenses, 

without a purpose or definite object." So then this 

1 Genesis iy : 3-10. 



Addresses and Letters 39 

national honour, security of the future, and everything but 
territorial indemnity may be considered the no-purposes 
and indefinite objects of the war ! But, having it now 
settled that territorial indemnity is the only object, we are. 
urged to seize, by legislation here, all that he was content 5 
to take a few months ago, and the whole province of 
Lower California to boot, and to still carry on the war — 
to take all we are fighting for, and still fight on. Again, 
the President is resolved under all circumstances to have 
full territorial indemnity for the expenses of the war ; but 10 
he forgets to tell us how we are to get the excess after 
those expenses shall have surpassed the value of the whole 
of the Mexican territory. So again, he insists that the 
separate national existence of Mexico shall be maintained ; 
but he does not tell us how this can be done, after we 15 
shall have taken all her territory. Lest the questions I 
have suggested be considered speculative merely, let me 
be indulged a moment in trying to show they are not. 
The war has gone on some twenty months ; for the ex- 
penses of which, together with an inconsiderable old 20 
score, the President now claims about one half of the 
Mexican territory, and that by far the better half, so far 
as concerns our ability to make anything out of it. It is 
comparatively uninhabited ; so that we could establish 
land offices in it, and raise some money in that way. 25 
But the other half is already inhabited, as I understand it, 
tolerably densely for the nature of the country, and all its 
lands, or all that are valuable, already appropriated as 
private property. How then are we to niake anything 



40 Addresses and Letters 

out of these lands with this encumbrance on them? or 
how remove the encumbrance? I suppose no one would 
say we should kill the people, or drive them out, or make 
slaves of them ; or confiscate their property. How, then, 
5 can we make much out of this part of the territory? If 
the prosecution of the war has in expenses already equalled 
the better half of the country, how long its future prose- 
cution will be in equalling the less valuable half is not a 
speculative, but a practical, question, pressing closely 

lo upon us. And yet it is a question which the President 
seems never to have thought of. As to the mode of ter- 
minating the war and securing peace, the President is 
equally wandering and indefinite. First, it is to be done 
by a more vigorous prosecution of the war in the vital parts 

IS of the enemy's country ; and after apparently talking him- 
self tired on this point, the President drops down into a 
half-despairing tone, and tells us that " with a people dis- 
tracted and divided by contending factions, and a govern- 
ment subject to constant changes by successive revolutions, 

20 the continued success of our arms may fail to secure a 
satisfactory peace." Then he suggests the propriety of 
wheedling the Mexican people to desert the counsels of 
their own leaders, and, trusting in our protestations, to set 
up a government from which we can secure a satisfactory 

25 peace ; telling us that " this may become the only mode 
of obtaining such a peace." But soon he falls into doubt 
of this too ; and then drops back on to the already 
half- abandoned ground of "more vigorous prosecution." 
All this shows that the President is in nowise satisfied 



Addresses and Letters 41 

with his own positions. First he takes up one, and in 
attempting to argue us into it he argues himself out of it, 
then seizes another and goes through the same process, 
and then, confused at being able to think of nothing new, 
he snatches up the old one again, which he has some time 5 
before cast off. His mind, taxed beyond its power, is 
running hither and thither, like some tortured creature on 
a burning surface, finding no position on which it can 
settle down and be at ease. 

Again, it is a singular omission in this message that it 10 
nowhere intimates when the President expects the war to 
terminate. At its beginning, General Scott was by this 
same President driven into disfavour, if not disgrace, for 
intimating that peace could not be conquered in less than 
three or four months. But now, at the end of about 15 
twenty months, during which time our arms have given us 
the most splendid successes, every department and every 
part, land and water, officers and privates, regulars and 
volunteers, doing all that men could do, and hundreds of 
things which it had ever before been thought men could 20 
not do — after all this, this same President gives a long 
message, without showing us that as to the end he him- 
self has even an imaginary conception. As I have before 
said, he knows not where he is. He is a bewildered, 
confounded, and miserably perplexed man. God grant 25 
he may be able to show there is not something about his 
conscience more painful than all his mental perplexity. 



42 Addresses and Letters | 

The following is a copy of the so-called " treaty " re- ■ 
ferred to in the speech : 

Articles of Agreement entered into between his Excellency 
David G. Burnet, President of the Republic of Texas, of the one 
5 part, and his Excellency General Santa Anna, President-General- 
in-Chief of the Mexican Army, of the other part. 

Article I. General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna agrees that he 
will not take up arms, nor will he exercise his influence to cause 
them to be taken up, against the people of Texas during the pres- 
lo ent war of independence. 

Article II. All hostilities between the Mexican and Texan troops 
will cease immediately, both by land and water. 

Article III. The Mexican troops will evacuate the territory of 
Texas, passing to the other side of the Rio Grande Del Norte. 
15 Article IV. The Mexican army, in its retreat, shall not take the 
property of any person without his consent and just indemnification, 
using only such articles as may be necessary for its subsistence, in 
cases when the owner may not l>t present, and remitting to the 
commander of the army of Texas, or to the commissioners to be 
20 appointed for the adjustment of such matters, an account of the 
value of the property consumed, the place where taken, and the 
name of the owner, if it can be ascertained. 

Article V. That all private property, including cattle, horses, 
negro slaves, or indentured persons, of whatever denomination, 
25 that may have been captured by any portion of the Mexican army, 
or may have taken refuge in the said army, since the commence- 
ment of the late invasion, shall be restored to the commander of 
the Texan army, or to such other persons as may be appointed by 
the Government of Texas to receive them. 
50 Article VI. The troops of both armies will refrain from coming 
in contact with each other; and to this end the commander of the 
army of Texas will be careful not to approach within a shorter 
distance than five leagues, 



Addresses and Letters 43 



Article VII. The Mexican army shall not make any other delay 
on its march than that which is necessary to take up their hospitals, 
baggage, etc., and to cross the rivers; any delay not necessary to 
these purposes to be considered an infraction of this agreement. 

Article VIII. By an express, to be immediately dispatched, 5 
this agreement shall be sent to General Vincente Filisola and to 
General T. J. Rusk, commander of the Texan army, in order that 
they may be apprised of its stipulations; and to this end they will 
exchange engagements to comply with the same. 

Article IX. That all Texan prisoners now in the possession of lo 
the Mexican army, or its authorities, be forthwith released, and 
furnished with free passports to return to their homes; in consider- 
ation of which a corresponding number of Mexican prisoners, rank 
and file, now in possession of the Government of Texas shall be 
immediately released; the remainder of the Mexican prisoners that 15 
continue in the possession of the Government of Texas to be treated 
with due humanity, — any extraordinary comforts that may be 
furnished them to be at the charge of the Government of Mexico. 
Article X. General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna will be sent 
to Vera Cruz as soon as it shall be deemed proper. 20 

The contracting parties sign this instrument for the above-men- 
tioned purposes, in duplicate, at the port of Velasco, this fourteenth 
day of May, 1836. 

David G. Burnet, President^ 

Jas. Collingsworth, Secretary of State, 25 

Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, 

B. Hardiman, Secretary of the Treasury, 

P. W. Grayson, Attorney- General. 

February 15, 1848. — Letter to William H. Herndon 

Washington, February 15, 1848. 30 
Dear William : Your letter of- the 29th January was 
received last night. Being exclusively a constitutional 



44 Addresses and Letters 

argument, I wish to submit some reflections upon it in 
the same spirit of kindness that I know actuates you. 
Let me first state what I understand to be your position. 
It is that if it shall become necessary to repel invasion, 

5 the President may, without violation of the Constitution, 
cross the hne and invade the territory of another country, 
and that whether such necessity exists in any given case 
the President is the sole judge. 

Before going further consider well whether this is or is 

lo not your position. If it is, it is a position that neither 
the President himself, nor any friend of his, so far as I 
know, has ever taken. Their only positions are — first, 
that the soil was ours when the hostilities commenced : 
and second, that whether it was rightfully ours or not, 

IS Congress had annexed it, and the President for that rea- 
son was bound to defend it ; both of which are as clearly 
proved to be false in fact as you can prove that your 
house is mine. The soil was not ours, and Congress did 
not annex or attempt to annex it. But to return to your 

20 position. Allow the President to invade a neighbouring 
nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an 
invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may 
choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, 
and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to 

25 see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, 
after having given him so much as you propose. If to- 
day he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to 
invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, 
how could you stop him ? You may say to him, " I see 



Addresses and Letters 45 

no probability of the British invading us " ; but he will 
say to you, " Be silent : I see it, if you don't." 

The provision of the Constitution giving the war-mak- 
ing power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, 
by the following reasons : Kings had always been involv- s 
ing and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending 
generally, if not always, that the good of the people was 
the object. This our convention understood to be the 
most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they re- 
solved to so frame the Constitution that no one man 10 
should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon 
us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places 
our President where kings have always stood. Write 
soon again. Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 15 

February 27, i860. — Address at Cooper Institute, 
New York 

Mr. President and Fellow-citizens of New York : The 
facts with which I shall deal this evening are mainly old 
and familiar ; nor is there anything new in the general use 20 
I shall make of them. If there shall be any novelty, it 
will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and the 
inferences and observations following that presentation. 
In his speech last autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported 
in the New York Times, Senator Douglas said: "Our 25 
fathers, when they framed the government under which 
we live, understood this question just as well, and even 
better^ than we do now." 



46 Addresses and Letters 

I fully endorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this 
discourse. I so adapt it because it furnishes a precise 
and an agreed starting-point for a discussion between Re- 
publicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by 
5 Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry: What 
was the understanding those fathers had of the question 
mentioned ? 

What is the frame of government under which we live? 

The answer must be, " The Constitution of the United 

10 States. " That Constitution consists of the original, framed 

in 1787, and under which the present government first 

went into operation, and twelve subsequently framed 

amendments, the first ten of which were framed in 1789. 

Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution? 

15 1 suppose the " thirty-nine " who signed the original 

instrument may be fairly called our fathers who framed 

that part of the present government. It is almost 

exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether true 

to say they fairly represented the opinion and sentiment 

20 of the whole nation at that time. Their names, being 

familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not 

now be repeated. 

I take these " thirty-nine," for the present, as being 

*' our fathers who framed the government under which 

25 we live." What is the question which, according to the 

text, those fathers understood "just as well, and even 

better, than we do now " ? 

It is this : Does the proper division of local from 
Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid 



Addresses and Letters 47 

our Federal Government to control as to slavery in our 
Federal Territories ? 

Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirn:iative, and 
Republicans the negative. This affirmation and denial 
form an issue ; and this issue — this question — is pre- 5 
cisely what the text declares our fathers understood 
" better than we." Let us now inquire whether the 
" thirty-nine," or any of them, ever acted upon this ques- 
tion ; and if they did, how they acted upon it — how 
they expressed that better understanding. In 1 784, three 10 
years before the Constitution, the United States then 
owning the Northwestern Territory,^ and no other, the 
Congress of the Confederation had before them the 
question of prohibiting slavery in that Territory ; and four 
ofthe" thirty-nine," who afterward framed the Constitution 15 
were in that Congress, and voted on that question. Of 
these, Roger Sherman, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh 
Williamson voted for the prohibition, thus showing that, 
in their understanding, no line dividing local from Fed- 
eral authority, nor anything else, properly forbade the 20 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal 
territory. The other of the four, James McHenry, voted 
against the prohibition, showing that for some cause he 
thought it improper to vote for it. 

In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the 25 
convention was in, session framing it, and while the 

1 The district about the Great Lakes comprising the present 
states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and a part of 
Minnesota. 



48 Addresses and Letters 

Northwestern Territory still was the only Territory owned 
by the United States, the same question of prohibiting 
slavery in the Territory again came before the Congress 
of the Confederation ; and two more of the " thirty-nine " 
5 who afterward signed the Constitution were in that 
Congress, and voted on the question. They were Will- 
iam Blount and William Few ; and they both voted for 
the prohibition — thus showing that in their understand- 
ing no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor 

10 anything else, properly forbade the Federal Government 
to control as to slavery in Federal territory. This time 
the prohibition became a law, being part of what is now 
well known as the ordinance of '87. 

The question of Federal control of slavery in the 

15 Territories seems not to have been directly before the 
convention which framed the original Constitution ; and 
hence it is not recorded that the " thirty-nine," or any of 
them, while engaged on that instrument, expressed any 
opinion on that precise question. 

20 In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the 
Constitution, an act was passed to enforce the ordinance 
of '87, including the prohibition of slavery in the North 
western Territory, The bill for this act was reported by 
one of the " thirty-nine " — Thomas Fitzsimmons, then a 

25 member of the House of Representatives from Pennsyl- 
vania. It went through all its stages without a word of 
opposition, and finally passed both branches without ayes 
and nays, which is equivalent to a unanimous passage. 
In this Congress there were sixteen of the thirty-nine 



Addresses and Letters 49 

fathers who framed the original Constitution. They were 
John Langdon, Nicholas Oilman, Wm. S. Johnson, Roger 
Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William Few, 
Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, WilHam Paterson, George 
Clymer, Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce Buder, 5 
Daniel Carroll, and James Madison. 

This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing 
local from Federal authority, nor anything in the Consti- 
tution, properly forbade Congress to prohibit slavery in 
the Federal territory; else both their fideHty to correct 10 
principle, and their oath to support the Constitution, 
would have constrained them to oppose the prohibition. 

Again, George Washington, another of the ''thirty- 
nine," was then President of the United States, and as 
such approved and signed the bill, thus completing its 15 
validity as a law, and thus showing that, in his under- 
standing, no line dividing local from Federal authority, 
nor anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal 
Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory. 

No great while after the adoption of the original 20 
Constitution, North Carohna ceded to the Federal Gov- 
ernment the country now constituting the State of Tennes- 
see ; and a few years later Georgia ceded that which 
now constitutes the States of Mississippi and Alabama. 
In both deeds of cession it was made a condition by the 25 
ceding States that the Federal Government should not 
prohibit slavery in the ceded country. Besides this, 
slavery was then actually in the ceded country. Under 
these circumstances, Congress, on taking charge of these 

SELEC. FROM LINCOLN — 4 



50 Addresses and Letters 

countries, did not absolutely prohibit slavery within them. 
But they did interfere with it — take control of it — even 
there, to a certain extent. In 1798 Congress organized 
the Territory of Mississippi. In the act of organization 
5 they prohibited the bringing of slaves into the Territory 
from any place without the United States, by fine, and 
giving freedom to slaves so brought. This act passed 
both branches of Congress without yeas and nays. In 
that Congress were three of the " thirty-nine " who 

10 framed the original Constitution. They were John 
Langdon, George Read, and Abraham Baldwin. They 
all probably voted for it. Certainly they would have 
placed their opposition to it upon record if, in their 
understanding, any line dividing local from Federal 

IS authority, or anything in the Constitution, properly forbade 
the Federal Government to control as to slavery in 
Federal territory. 

In 1803 the Federal Government purchased the 
Louisiana country. Our former territorial acquisitions 

20 came from certain of our own States ; but this Louisiana 
country was acquired from a foreign nation. In 1804 
Congress gave a territorial organization to that part of it 
which now constitutes the State of Louisiana. New 
Orleans, lying within that part, was an old and compara- 

25 tively large city. There were other considerable towns 
and settlements, and slavery was extensively and thoroughly 
intermingled with the people. Congress did not, in the 
Territorial Act, prohibit slavery ; but they did interfere 
with it — take control of it — in a more marked and 



F 



Addresses and Letters 51 

extensive way than they did in the case of Mississippi. 
The substance of the provision therein made in relation 
to slaves was : 

I St. That no slave should be imported into the 
Territory from foreign parts. 5 

2d. That no slave should be carried into it who had 
been imported into the United States since the first day 
of May, 1798. 

3d. That no slave should be carried into it, except by 
the owner, and for his own use as a settler ; the penalty 10 
in all the cases being a fine upon the violator of the law, 
and freedom to the slave. 

This act also was passed without ayes or nays. In 
the Congress which passed it there were two of the 
*' thirty-nine." They were Abraham Baldwin and 15 
Jonathan Dayton. As stated in the case of Mississippi, 
it is probable they both voted for it. They would not 
have allowed it to pass without recording their opposition 
to it if, in their understanding, it violated either the line 
properly dividing local from Federal authority, or any 20 
provision of the Constitution. 

In 1819-20 came and passed the Missouri question. 
Many votes were taken, by yeas and nays, in both branches 
of Congress, upon the various phases of the general 
question. Two of the " thirty-nine " — Rufus King and 25 
Charles Pinckney — were members of that Congress. 
Mr. King steadily voted for slavery prohibition and 
against all compromises, while Mr. Pinckney as steadily 
voted against slavery prohibition and against all com- 



5^ Addresses and Letters 

promises. By this, Mr. King showed that, in his under- 
standing, no line dividing local from Federal authority, 
nor anything in the Constitution, was violated by Congress 
prohibiting slavery in Federal territory ; while Mr. Pinck- 
5 ney, by his votes, showed that, in his understanding, there 
was some sufficient reason for opposing such prohibition 
in that case. 

The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the 
" thirty-nine," or of any of them, upon the direct issue, 

lo which I have been able to discover. 

To enumerate the persons who thus acted as being four 
in 1784, two in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 1798, 
two in 1804, and two in 1819-20, there would be thirty 
of them. But this would be counting John Langdon, 

15 Roger Sherman, WiUiam Few, Rufus King, and George 
Read each twice, and Abraham Baldwin three times. 
The true number of those of the " thirty-nine " whom I 
have shown to have acted upon the question which, by 
the text, they understood better than we, is twenty-three, 

20 leaving sixteen not shown to have acted upon it in any 
way. 

Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty-nine 
fathers " who framed the government under which we 
live," who have, upon their official responsibihty and their 

25 corporal oaths, acted upon the very question which the 
text affirms they " understood just as well, and even bet- 
ter, than we do now " ; and twenty-one of them — a 
clear majority of the whole " thirty-nine " — so acting 
upon it as to make them guilty of gross political impro- 



Addresses and Letters §2 

priety and wilful perjury if, in their understanding, any 
proper division between local and Federal authority, or 
anything in the Constitution they had made themselves, 
and sworn to support, forbade the Federal Government 
to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories. Thus 5 
the twenty-one acted ; and, as actions speak louder than 
words, so actions under such responsibility speak still 
louder. 

Two of the twenty-three voted against congressional 
prohibition of slavery in the Federal Territories, in the 10 
instances in which they acted upon the question. , But 
for what reasons they so voted is not known. They may 
have done so because they thought a proper division of 
local from Federal authority, or some provision or prin- 
ciple of the Constitution, stood in the way ; or they may, 15 
without any such question, have voted against the pro- 
hibition on what appeared to them to be sufficient grounds 
of expediency. No one who has sworn to support the 
Constitution can conscientiously vote for what he under- 
stands to be an unconstitutional measure, however expedi- 20 
ent he may think it ; but one may and ought to vote 
against a measure which he deems constitutional if, at the 
same time, he deems it inexpedient. It, therefore, would 
be unsafe to set down even the two who voted against 
the prohibition as having done so because, in their under- 25 
standing, any proper division of local from Federal 
authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbade the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal 
territory. 



54 Addresses and Letters 

The remaining sixteen of the " thirty-nine," so far as I 
have discovered, have left no record of their understanding 
upon the direct question of Federal control of slavery in 
the Federal Territories. But there is much reason to be- 

S lieve that their understanding upon that question would 
not have appeared different from that of their twenty-three 
compeers, had it been manifested at all. 

For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I have 
purposely omitted whatever understanding may have 

lo been manifested by any person, however distinguished, 
other than the thirty-nine fathers who framed the origi- 
nal Constitution ; and, for the same reason, I have also 
omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested 
by any of the "thirty-nine" even on any other phase of 

15 the general question of slavery. If we should look into 
their acts and declarations on those other phases, as the 
foreign slave-trade, and the morality and policy of slavery 
generally, it would appear to us that on the direct ques- 
tion of Federal control of slavery in Federal Territories, 

20 the sixteen, if they had acted at all, would probably have 
acted just as the twenty-three did. Among that sixteen 
were several of the most noted antislavery men of those 
times, — as Dr. Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Gou- 
verneur Morris, — while there was not one now known to 

25 have been otherwise, unless it may be John Rutledge, of 
South CaroHna. 

The sum of the whole is that of our thirty-nine fathers 
who framed the original Constitution, twenty-one — a clear 
majority of the whole — certainly understood that no 



Addresses and Letters 55 

proper division of local from Federal authority, nor any part 
of the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to 
control slavery in the Federal Territories ; while all the 
rest had probably the same understanding. Such, un- 
questionably, was the understanding of our fathers who 5 
framed the original Constitution ; and the text affirms 
that they understood the question "better than we." 

But, so far, I have been considering the understanding 
of the question manifested by the framers of the original 
Constitution. In and by the original instrument, a mode 10 
was provided for amending it ; and, as I have already stated, 
the present frame of " the government under which we live " 
consists of that original, and twelve amendatory articles 
framed and adopted since. Those who now insist that 
Federal control of slavery in Federal Territories violates 15 
the Constitution, point us to the provisions which they sup- 
pose it thus violates ; and, as I understand, they all fix 
upon provisions in these amendatory articles, and not in the , 
original instrument. The Supreme Court, in the Dred 
Scott case, plant themselves upon the fifth amendment, 20 
which provides that no person shall be deprived of " Hfe, 
liberty, or property without due process of law"; while 
Senator Douglas and his peculiar adherents plant them- 
selves upon the tenth amendment, providing that " the 
powers not delegated to the United States by the Consti- 25 
tution" " are reserved to the States respectively, or to the 
people." 

Now, it so happens that these amendments were framed 
by the first Congress which sat under the Constitution — 



^6 Addresses and Letters 

the identical Congress which passed the act, already men- 
tioned, enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the North- 
western Territory. Not only was it the same Congress, 
but they were the identical, same individual men who, at the 
5 same session, and at the same time within the session, had 
under consideration, and in progress toward maturity, these 
constitutional amendments, and this act prohibiting slavery 
in all the territory the nation then owned. The constitu- 
tional amendments were introduced before, and passed 

lo after, the act enforcing the ordinance of '87 ; so that, dur- 
ing the whole pendency of the act to enforce the ordi- 
nance, the constitutional amendments were also pending. 
The seventy-six members of that Congress, including 
sixteen of the framers of the original Constitution, as be- 

15 fore stated, were pre-eminently our fathers who framed 
that part of "the government under which weHve" which 
is now claimed as forbidding the Federal Government to 
control slavery in the Federal Territories. 

Is it not a httle presumptuous in any one at this day to 

20 affirm that the two things which that Congress deliberately 
framed, and carried to maturity at the same time, are ab- 
solutely inconsistent with each other? And does not such 
affirmation become impudently absurd when coupled with 
the other affirmation, from the same mouth, that those 

25 who did the two things alleged to be inconsistent, under- 
stood whether they really were inconsistent better than 
we — better than he who affirms that they are inconsistent ? 
It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers of 
the original Constitution, and the seventy-six members of 



' ' Addresses and Letters 57 

the Congress which framed the amendments thereto, taken 
together, do certainly include those who may be fairly 
called "our fathers who framed the government under 
which we Hve." And so assuming, I defy any man to 
show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared 5 
that, in his understanding, any proper division of local 
from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, 
forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery 
in the Federal Territories. I go a step further. I defy 
any one to show that any living man in the whole world 10 
ever did, prior to the beginning of the present century 
(and I might almost say prior to the beginning of the last 
half of the present century), declare that, in his under- 
standing, any proper division of local from Federal au- 
thority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the 15 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Fed- 
eral Territories. To those who now so declare I give not 
only " our fathers who framed the government under which 
we live," but with them all other living men within the cen- 
tury in which it was framed, among whom to search, and 20 
they shall not be able to find the evidence of a single man 
agreeing with them. 

Now, and here, let me guard a little against being mis- 
understood. I do not mean to say we are bound to 
follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do so 25 
would be to discard all the lights of current experience — 
to reject all progress, all improvement. What I do say is 
that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our 
fathers in any case, we should do so upon evidence so 



58 Addresses and Letters 

conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their great 
authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand ; 
and most surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare 
they understood the question better than we. 
5 If any man at this day sincerely believes that a proper 
division of local from Federal authority, or any part of 
the Constitution, forbids the Federal Government to con- 
trol astQ slavery in the Federal Territories, he is right to 
say so, and to enforce his position by all truthful evidence 

10 and fair argument which he can. But he has no right to 
mislead others, who have less access to history, and less 
leisure to study it, into the false belief that " our fathers 
who framed the government under which we hve " were 
of the same opinion — thus substituting falsehood and 

IS deception for truthful evidence and fair argument. If 
any man at this day sincerely beheves " our fathers who 
framed the government under which we live " used and 
applied principles, in other cases, which ought to have 
led them to understand that a proper division of local 

20 from Federal authority, or some part of the Constitution, 
forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery 
in the Federal Territories, he is right to say so. But he 
should, at the same time, brave the responsibility of de- 
claring that, in his opinion, he understands their princi- 

25 pies better than they did themselves ; and especially 
should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that 
they " understood the question just as well, and even 
better', than we do now." 

But enough ! Let all who believe that " our fathers 



Addresses and Letters 59 

who framed the government under which we Hve under- 
stood this question just as well, and even better, than we 
do now," speak as they spoke, and act as they acted 
upon it. This is all Republicans ask — all Republicans 
desire — in relation to slavery. As those fathers marked 5 
it, so let it be again marked, as an evil not to be ex- 
tended, but to be tolerated and protected only because 
of and so far as its actual presence among us makes that 
toleration and protection a necessity. Let all the guar- 
anties those fathers gave it be not grudgingly, but fully 10 
and fairly, maintained. For this Republicans contend, 
and with this, so far as 1 know or believe, they will be 
content. 

And now, if they would listen, — as I suppose they 
will not, — I would address a few words to the Southern 15 
people. 

I would say to them : You consider yourselves a rea- 
sonable and a just people ; and I consider that in the 
general qualities of reason and justice you are not in- 
ferior to any other people. Still, when you speak of us 20 
Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles, 
or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant 
a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to 
" Black Republicans." In all your contentions with one 
another, each of you deems an unconditional condemna- 25 
tion of " Black Republicanism " as the first thing to be 
attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to 
be an indispensable prerequisite — licence, so to speak — 
among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all. 



6o Addresses and Letters 

Now can you or not be prevailed upon to pause and to 
consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to your- 
selves? Bring forward your charges and specifications, 
and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or 
5 justify. 

You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes 
an issue ; and the burden of proof is upon you. You 
produce your proof ; and what is it ? Why, that our 
party has no existence in your section — gets no votes 

lo in your section. The fact is substantially true ; but does 
it prove the issue ? If it does, then in case we should, 
without change of principle, begin to get votes in your 
section, we should thereby cease to be sectional. You 
cannot escape this conclusion ; and yet, are you willing 

1 5 to abide by it ? If you are, you will probably soon find 
that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get 
votes in your section this very year. You will then be- 
gin to discover, as the truth plainly is, that your proof 
does not touch the issue. The fact that we get no votes 

20 in your section is a fact of your making, and not of ours. 
And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is primarily 
yours, and remains so until you show that we repel you 
by some wrong principle or practice. If we do repel 
you by any wrong principle or practice, the fault is ours ; 

25 but this brings you to where you ought to have started 
— to a discussion of the right or wrong of our principle. 
If our principle, put in practice, would wrong your sec- 
tion for the benefit of ours, or for any other ol^ject^ then 
our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly 



Addresses and Letters 6i 

opposed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the 
question of whether our principle, put in practice, would 
wrong your section ; and so meet us as if it were possi- 
ble that something may be said on our side. Do you 
accept the challenge? No! Then you really believes 
that the principle which "our fathers who framed the 
government under which we live " thought so clearly 
right as to adopt it, and endorse it again and again, 
upon their official oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as to 
demand your condemnation without a moment's consid- lo 
eration. 

Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning 
against sectional parties given by Washington in his Fare- 
well Address. Less than eight years before Washington 
gave that warning, he had, as President of the United 15 
States, approved and signed an act of Congress enforcing 
the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory, 
which act embodied the policy of the government upon 
that subject up to and at the very moment he penned 
that warning ; and about one year after he penned it, he 20 
wrote Lafayette that he considered that prohibition a 
wise measure, expressing in the same connexion his hope 
that we should at some time have a confederacy of free 
States. 

Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has 25 
since arisen upon this same subject, is that warning a 
weapon in your hands against us, or in our hands against 
you? Could Washington himself speak, would he cast 
the blame of that sectionaHsm upon us, who sustain his 



62 Addresses and Letters 

policy, or upon you, who repudiate it ? We respect that 
warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, to- 
gether with his example pointing to the right application 
of it. 

5 But you say you are conservative — eminently con- 
servative — while we are revolutionary, destructive, or 
something of the sort. What is conservatism ? Is it 
not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and 
untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old 

10 policy on the point in controversy which was adopted 
by " our fathers who framed the government under which 
we live"; while you with one accord reject, and scout, 
and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substitut- 
ing something new. True, you disagree among your- 

15 selves as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided 
on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in 
rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. 
Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave-trade ; some 
for a congressional slave code for the Territories ; some 

20 for Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit slavery 
within their limits ; some for maintaining slavery in the 
Territories through the judiciary ; some for the " gur-reat 
pur-rinciple " that " if one man would enslave another, 
no third man should object," fantastically called " popu- 

25 lar sovereignty " ; but never a man among you is in favour 
of Federal prohibition of slavery in Federal Territories, 
according to the practice of "our fathers who framed the 
government under which we live." Not one of all your 
various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the 



Addresses and Letters 6^ 

century within which our government originated. Con- 
sider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for your- 
selves, and your charge of destructiveness against us, are 
based on the most clear and stable foundations. 

Again, you say we have made the slavery question more 5 
prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit 
that it is more prominent, but we deny that we made it 
so. It was not we, but you, who discarded the old policy 
of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist, your innova- 
tion ; and thence comes the greater prominence of the 10 
question. Would you have that question reduced to its 
former proportions ? Go back to that old policy. What 
has been will be again, under the same conditions. If 
you would have the peace of the old times, readopt the 
precepts and policy of the old times. 15 

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your 
slaves. We deny it ; and what is your proof ? Harper's 
Ferry ! John Brown ! ! John Brown was no Republican ; 
and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in 
his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party 20 
is guilty in that matter, you know it, or you do not know 
it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not desig- 
nating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know 
it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially for 
persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed 25 
to make the proof. You need not be told that persisting 
in a charge which one does not know to be true, is simply 
malicious slander. 

Some of you admit that no Republican designedly 



64 Addresses and Letters 

aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair, but still 
insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead 
to such results. We do not believe it. We know we 
hold no doctrine, and make no declaration, which were 
5 not held to and made by " our fathers who framed the 
government under which we live." You never dealt fairly 
by us in relation to this affair. When it occurred, some 
important State elections were near at hand, and you were 
in evident glee with the beHef that, by charging the blame 

10 upon us, you could get an advantage of us in those elec- 
tions. The elections came, and your expectations were 
not quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as 
to himself at least, your charge was a slander, and he was 
not much inclined by it to cast his vote in your favour. 

isRepubHcan doctrines and declarations are accompanied 
with a continual protest against any interference whatever 
with your slaves, or with you about your slaves. Surely, this 
does not encourage them to revolt. True, we do, in com- 
mon with " our fathers who framed the government under 

20 which we live," declare our belief that slavery is wrong ; 
but the slaves do not hear us declare even this. For any- 
thing we say or do, the slaves would scarcely know there 
is a Republican party. I believe they would not, in fact, 
generally know it but for your misrepresentations of us in 

25 their hearing. In .your political contests among yourselves, 
each faction charges the other with sympathy with Black 
Republicanism; and then, to give point to the charge, 
defines Black Republicanism to simply be insurrection, 
blood, and thunder among the slaves. 



Addresses and Letters 6^ 

Slave insurrections are no more common now than they 
were before the Republican party was organized. What 
induced the Southampton insurrection, twenty-eight years 
ago, in which at least three times as many lives were lost 
as at Harper's Ferry ? You can scarcely stretch your very s 
elastic fancy to the conclusion that Southampton was " got 
up by Black Republicanism." In the present state of 
things in the United States, I do not think a general, or 
even a very extensive, slave insurrection is possible. The 
indispensable concert of action cannot be attained. The lo 
slaves have no means of rapid communication ; nor can 
incendiary freemen, black or white, supply it. The ex- 
plosive materials are everywhere in parcels ; but there 
neither are, nor can be supplied, the indispensable con- 
necting trains. 15 

Much is said by Southern people about the affection of 
slaves for their masters and mistresses ; and a part of it, 
at least, is true. A plot for an uprising could scarcely be 
devised and communicated to twenty individuals before 
some one of them, to save the life of a favourite master or 20 
mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule; and the slave 
revolution in Hayti was not an exception to it, but a case 
occurring under peculiar circumstances. The gunpowder 
plot of British history, though not connected with slaves, 
was more in point. In that case, only about twenty were 25 
admitted to the secret ; and yet one of them, in his 
anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, 
and, by consequence, averted the calamity. Occasional poi- 
sonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy assassina- 

SELEC. FROM LINCOLN — 5 



66 Addresses and Letters 

tions in the field, and local revolts extending to a score or so, 
will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery ; but 
no general insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in 
this country for a long time. Whoever much fears, or much 
5 hopes, for such an event, will be alike disappointed. 

In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years 
ago, " It is still in our power to direct the process of 
emancipation and deportation peaceably, and in such 
slow degrees, as that the evil will wear off insensibly ; and 

lo their places he, pari passu, ^ filled up by free white labour- 
ers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, 
human nature must shudder at the prospect held up." 

Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the 
power of emancipation is in the .Federal Government. 

15 He spoke of Virginia ; and, as to the power of emanci- 
pation, I speak of the slave-holding States only. The 
Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the power 
of restraining the extension of the institution — the power 
to ensure that a slave insurrection shall never occur on 

20 any American soil which is now free from slavery. 

John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave 
insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to get up 
a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to 
participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, 

25 with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not 

succeed. That aff^iir, in its philosophy, corresponds with 

the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination 

of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the 

1 With equal pace; in like proportion. 



Addresses and Letters 67 

oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned 
by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt, 
which ends in little else than his own execution. Orsini's 
attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's attempt 
at Harper's Ferry, were, in their philosophy, precisely the 5 
same. The eagerness to cast blame on old England in 
the one case, and on New England in the other, does not 
disprove the sameness of the two things. 

And how much would it avail you, if you could, by the 
use of John Brown, Helper's Book, and the like, break 10 
up the Republican organization ? Human action can be 
modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be 
changed. There is a judgement and a feeling against 
slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a 
half of votes. You cannot destroy that judgement and 15 
feeling — that sentiment — by breaking up the political 
organization which rallies around it. You can scarcely 
scatter and disperse an army which has been formed into 
order in the face of your heaviest fire ; but if you could, 
how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which 20 
created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box 
into some other channel? What would that other chan- 
nel probably be ? Would the number of John Browns be 
lessened or enlarged by the operation? 

But you will break up the Union rather than submit to 25 
a denial of your constitutional rights. 

That has a somewhat reckless sound ; but it would be 
palliated, if not fully justified, were we proposing, by the 
mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some right 



68 Addresses and Letters 

plainly written down in the Constitution. But we are 
proposing no such thing. 

When you make these declarations you have a specific 

and well understood allusion to an assumed constitutional 

5 right of yours to take slaves into the Federal Territories, 

and to hold them there as property. But no such right 

. is specifically written in the Constitution. That instru- 
ment is literally silent about any such right. We, on the 
contrary, deny that such a right has any existence in the 

lo Constitution, even by implication. 

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will de- 
stroy the government, unless you be allowed to construe 
and force the Constitution as you please, on all points in 
dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all 

15 events. 

This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you 
will say the Supreme Court has decided the disputed 
constitutional question in your favour. Not quite so. 
But waiving the lawyer's distinction between dictum and 

20 decision, the court has decided the question for you in a 
sort of way. The court has substantially said, it is your 
constitutional right to take slaves into the Federal Terri- 
tories, and to hold them there as property. When I say 
the decision was made in a sort of way, I mean it was 

25 made in a divided court, by a bare majority of the judges, 
and they not quite agreeing with one another in the rea- 
sons for making it ; that it is so made as that its avowed 
supporters disagree with one another about its meaning, 
and that it was mainly based upon a mistaken statement 



Addresses and Letters 69 

of fact — the statement in the opinion that " the right of 
property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in 
the Constitution." 

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the 
right of property in a slave is not " distincdy and ex- 5 
pressly affirmed " in it. Bear in mind, the judges do not 
pledge their judicial opinion that such right is impliedly 
affirmed in the Constitution ; but they pledge their verac- 
ity that it is " distinctly and expressly " affirmed there 

— " distinctly," that is, not mingled with anything else 10 

— " expressly," that is, in words meaning just that, with- 
out the aid of any inference, and susceptible of no other 
meaning. 

If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that 
such right is affirmed in the instrument by implication, it 15 
would be open to others to show that neither the word 
" slave " nor " slavery " is to be found in the Constitution, 
nor the word " property " even, in any connection with 
language alluding to the things slave, or slavery; and that 
wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is 20 
called a " person " ; and wherever his master's legal right 
in relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as ''service 
or labour which may be due" — as a debt payable in 
service or labour. Also it would be open to show, by 
contemporaneous history, that this mode of alluding to 25 
slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was 
employed on purpose to exclude from the Constitution 
the idea that there could be property in man. 

To show all this is easy and certain. 



70 Addresses and Letters 

When this obvious mistake of the judges shall be 
brought to their notice, is it not reasonable to expect that 
they will withdraw the mistaken statement, and reconsider 
the conclusion based upon it ? 
5 And then it is to be remembered that " our fathers who 
framed the government under which we live " — the men 
who made the Constitution — decided this same consti- 
tutional question in our favour long ago : decided it with- 
out division among themselves when making the decision ; 

lo without division among themselves about the meaning of 
it after it was made, and, so far as any evidence is left, 
without basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts. 

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel your- 
selves justified to break up this government unless such a 

IS court decision as yours is shall beat once submitted to as 
a conclusive and final rule of political action ? But you 
will not abide the election of a RepubHcan president ! 
In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the 
Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having 

20 destroyed it will be upon us ! That is cool. A highway- 
man holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his 
teeth, " Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then 
you will be a murderer ! " 

To be sure, what the robber demanded of me — my 

25 money — was my own ; and I had a clear right to keep 
it ; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own ; 
and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and 
the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, 
can scarcely be distinguished in principle. 



Addresses and Letters 71 

A few words now to Republicans. It is exceedingly- 
desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall be 
at peace, and in harmony one with another. Let us Re- 
publicans do our part to have it so. Even though much 
provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill tem- 5 
per. Even though the Southern people will not so much 
as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and 
yield to them if, in our dehberate view of our duty, we 
possibly can. Judging by all they say and do, and by 
the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us 10 
determine, if we can, what will satisfy them. 

Will they be satisfied if the Territories be uncondition- 
ally surrendered to them? We know they willnot. In 
all their present complaints against us, the Territories are 
scarcely mentioned. Invasions and insurrections are the 15 
rage now. Will it satisfy them if, in the future, we have 
nothing to do with invasions and insurrections ? We know 
it will not. We so know, because we know we never had 
anything to do with invasions and insurrections ; and yet 
this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge 20 
and the denunciation. 

The question recurs, What will satisfy them? Simply 
this : we must not only let them alone,, but we must 
somehow convince them that we do let them alone. This, 
we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been 25 
so trying to convince them from the very beginning of 
our organization, but with no success. In all our plat- 
forms and speeches we have constantly protested our 
purpose to let them alone j but this has had no tendency 



72 Addresses and Letters 

to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them is 
the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any 
attempt to disturb them. 

These natural and apparently adequate means all fail- 
sing, what will convince them? This, and this only: 
cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it 
right. And this must be done thoroughly — done in acts 
as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated — we 
must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator 

lo Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, 
suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether 
made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We 
must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy 
pleasure. We must pull down our free-State constitutions. 

15 The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of 
opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe 
that all their troubles proceed from us. 

I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely 
in this way. Most of them would probably say to us, 

20 " Let us alone ; do nothing to us, and say what you please 
about slavery." But we do let them alone, — have never 
disturbed them, — so that, after all, it is what we say 
which dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us 
of doing, until we cease saying. 

25 'I am also aware they have not as yet in terms de- 
manded the overthrow of our free-State constitutions. Yet 
those constitutions declare the wrong of slavery with 
more solemn emphasis than do all other sayings against 
it; and when all these other sayings shall have been 



Addresses and Letters 73 

silenced, the overthrow of these constitutions will be 
demanded, and nothing be left to resist the demand. It 
is nothing to the contrary that they do not demand the 
whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and 
for the reason they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere 5 
short of this consummation. Holding, as they do, that 
slavery is morally right and socially elevating, they cannot 
cease to demand a full national recognition of it as a 
legal right and a social blessing. 

Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground 10 
save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is 
right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against it 
are themselves wrong, and should be silenced and swept 
away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its 
nationality — its universality; if it is wrong, they cannot 15 
justly insist upon its extension — its enlargement. All 
they ask we could readily grant, if we thought slavery 
right; all we ask they could as readily grant, if they 
thought it wrong. Their thinking it right and our think- 
ing it wrong is the precise fact upon which depends the 20 
whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they 
are not to blame for desiring its full recognition as being 
right ; but thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to 
them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and 
against our own? In view of our moral, social, and 25 
political responsibilities, can we do this? 

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let 
it alone where it is, because that much is due to the 
necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; 



74 Addresses and Letters 

but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to 
spread into the national Territories, and to overrun us 
here in these free States? If our sense of duty forbids 
this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively. 
5 Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contriv- 
ances wherewith we are so industriously plied and bela- 
boured — contrivances such as groping for some middle 
ground between the right and the wrong : vain as the 
search for a man who should be neither a living man nor 

loa dead man; such as a policy of "don't care" on a 
question about which all true men do care ; such as 
Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Dis- 
unionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sin- 
ners, but the righteous to repentance ; such as invocations 

15 to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington 
said and undo what Washington did. 

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accu- 
sations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of de- 
struction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. 

20 Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith 
let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it. 

December 8, i860. — Letters to W. H. Seward 
Springfield, Illinois, December 8, i860. 
M^ dear Sir: With your permission I shall at the 
25 proper time nominate you to the Senate for confirmation 
as Secretary of State for the United States. Please let 
me hear from you at your own earliest convenience. 
Your friend and obedient servant, A. Lincoln. 



I 



I 



Addresses and Letters 75 

{Private and confidential.') 

Springfield, Illinois, December 8, i860. 

My dear Sir: In addition to the accompanying and 
more formal note inviting you to take charge of the State 
Department, I deem it proper to address you this. 5 
Rumours have got into the newspapers to the effect that 
the department named above would be tendered you as 
a compHment, and with the expectation that you would 
decHne it. I beg you to be assured that I have said 
nothing to justify these rumours. On the contrary, it has 10 
been my piirpose, from the day of the nomination at 
Chicago, to assign you, by your leave, this place in the 
administration. I have delayed so long to communicate 
that purpose in deference to what appeared to me a 
proper caution in the case. Nothing has been developed 15 
to change my view in the premises ; and I now offer you 
the place in the hope that you will accept it, and with the 
belief that your position in the public eye, your integrity, 
ability, learning, and great experience, all combine to 
render it an appointment pre-eminently fit to be made. 20 

One word more. In regard to the patronage sought 
with so much eagerness and jealousy, I have prescribed 
for myself the maxim, "Justice to all " ; and I earnestly 
beseech your co-operation in keeping the maxim good. 

Your friend and obedient servant, 25 

A. Lincoln. 

Hon. William H. Seward, Washington, D.C. 



y6 Addresses and Letters 

February ii, i86i. — Farewell Address at 
Springfield, Illinois 

Afy Friends : No one, not in my situation, can appre- 
ciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, 
5 and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. 
Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed 
from a young to an old man. Here my children have 
been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not know- 
ing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before 

lo me greater than that which rested upon Washington. 
Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever 
attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I 
cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and 
remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us con- 

15 fidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care 
commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will 
commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell. 

February 22, 1861. — Address in Independence 
Hall, Philadelphia 

20 Mr. Cuyler : I am filled with deep emotion at find- 
ing myself standing in this place, where were collected 
together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to 
principle, from which sprang the institutions under which 
we live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my 

25 hands is the task of restoring peace to our distracted 
country. I can say in return, sir, that all the political 
sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have 



Addresses and Letters 77 

been able to draw them, from the sentiments which 
originated in and were given to the world from this 
hall. I have never had a feeling, politically, that did 
not spring from the sentiments embodied in the 
Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered s 
over the dangers which were incurred by the men who 
assembled here and framed and adopted that Declara- 
tion. I have pondered over the toils that were endured 
by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved 
that independence. I have often inquired of myself 10 
what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confed- 
eracy so long together. It was not the mere matter of 
separation of the colonies from the motherland, but that 
sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which 
gave hberty not alone to the people of this country, but 15 
hope to all the world, for all future time. It was that 
which gave promise that in due time the weights would 
be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all 
should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment 
embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Now, 20 
my friends, can this country be saved on that basis ? If 
it can, I will consider myself one of the happiest men in 
the world if I can help to save it. If it cannot be saved 
upon that principle, it will be truly awful. But if this 
country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, 25 
I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this 
spot than surrender it. Now, in my view of the present 
aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. 
There is no necessity for it. I am not in favour of such a 



yS Addresses and Letters 

course ; and I may say in advance that there will be no 
bloodshed unless it is forced upon the government. 
The government will not use force, unless force is used 
against it. 
5 My friends, this is wholly an unprepared speech. I did 
not expect to be called on to say a word when I came 
here. I supposed I was merely to do something toward 
raising a flag. I may, therefore, have said something 
indiscreet. [Cries of " No, no."] But I have said 
lo nothing but what I am wilHng to live by, and, if it be the 
pleasure of Almighty God, to die by. 



March 4, 1861. — First Inaugural Address 

Fellow- citizens of the United States : In comphance 
with a custom as old as the government itself, I appear 

IS before you to address you briefly, and to take in your 
presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the 
United vStates to be taken by the President "■ before he 
enters on the execution of his office." 

I do not consider it necessary at present for me to 

20 discuss those matters of administration about which there 
is no special anxiety or excitement. 

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the 
Southern States that by the accession of a Republican 
administration their property and their peace and per- 

25 sonal security are to be endangered. There Has never 
been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. In- 
deed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all 



Addresses and Letters 79 

the while existed and been open to their inspection. It 
is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who 
now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those 
speeches when I declare that " I have no purpose, 
directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of 5 
slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no 
lawful right to do so, and I have no incHnationto do so." 
Those who nominated and elected me did so with full 
knowledge that I had made this and many similar decla- 
rations, and had never recanted them. And, more than 10 
this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and 
as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic 
resolution which I now read : 

Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the 
States, and especially the right of each State to order and control 15 
its own domestic institutions according to its own judgement exclu- 
sively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection 
and endurance of our political fabric depend, and we denpunce the 
lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Terri- 
tory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of 20 
crimes. 

I now reiterate these sentiments ; and, in doing so, I 
only press upon the public attention the most conclusive 
evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the 
property, peace, and security of no section are to be in 25 
any wise endangered by the now incoming administra- 
tion. I add, too, that all the protection which, consist- 
endy with the Constitution and the laws, can be given, 
will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully 



I 



8o Addresses and Letters 

demanded, for whatever cause — as cheerfully to one 
section as to another. 

There is much controversy about the delivering up of 
fugitives from service or labour. The clause I now read is 
5 as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its 
provisions : 

No person held to service or labour in one State, under the laws 

thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or 

regulation therein be discharged from such service or labour, but 

lo shall be deUvered up on claim of the party to whom such service 

or labour may be due. 

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was in- 
tended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what 
we call fugitive slaves ; and the intention of the lawgiver 

15 is the law. All members of Congress swear their support 
to the whole Constitution — to this provision as much as 
to any .other. To the proposition, then, that slaves 
whose cases come within the terms of this clause " shall 
be delivered up," their oaths are unanimous. Now, if 

20 they would make the effort in good temper, could they 
not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by 
means of which to keep good that unanimous oath ? 

There is some difference of opinion whether this clause 
should be enforced by national or by State authority; 

25 but surely that difference is not a very material one. If 
the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little con- 
sequence to him or to others by which authority it is 
done. And should any one in any case be content that 



Addresses and Letters 8i 

his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial contro- 
versy as to how it shall be kept ? 

Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the 
safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane juris- 
prudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not, in 5 
any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it not be 
well at the same time to provide by law for the enforce- 
ment of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees 
that " the citizen of each State shall be entitled to all 
privileges and immunities of citizens in . the several lo 
States"? 

I take the official oath to-day with no mental reserva- 
tions, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution 
or laws by any hypercritical rules. And while I do not 
choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as 15 
proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much 
safer for all, both in official and private stations, to con- 
form to and abide by all those acts which stand unre- 
pealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find 
impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional. 20 

It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a 
President under our National Constitution. During that 
period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens 
have, in succession, administered the executive branch 
of the government. They have conducted it through 25 
many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with 
all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same 
task for the brief constitutional term of four years under 
great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal 

SELEC. FROM LINCOLN — 6 



82 Addresses and Letters 

Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably 
attempted. 

I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of 
the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. 
5 Perpetuity is impHed, if not expressed, in the funda- 
mental law of all national governments. It is safe to 
assert that no government proper ever had a provision 
in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to 
execute all the express provisions of our National Consti- 

lo tution, and the Union will endure forever — it being im- 
possible to destroy it except by some action not provided 
for in the instrument itself. 

Again, if the United States be not a government proper, 
but an association of States in the nature of contract 

IS merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by 
less than all the parties who made it? One party to 
a contract may violate it — break it, so to speak; but 
does it not require all to lawfully rescind it? 

Descending from these general principles, we find 

20 the proposition that, in legal contemplation, the Union 
is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union it- 
self. The Union is much older than the Constitution. 
It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association 
in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Decla- 

25 ration of Independence in 1776. It was further ma- 
tured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States 
expressly plighted and engaged that it should be per- 
petual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And, 
finally, in 1787 one of the declared objects for ordain- 



Addresses and Letters 83 

ing and establishing the Constitution was "to form a 
more perfect Union." 

But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a 
part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union 
is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost 5 
the vital element of perpetuity. 

It follows from these views that no State upon its own 
mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union ; that 
resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void ; 
and that acts of violence, within any State or States, 10 
against the authority of the United States, are insur- 
rectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances. 

I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution 
and the laws, the Union is unbroken ; and to the extent 
of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself 15 
expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be 
faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem 
to be only a simple duty on my part ; and I shall per- 
form it so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, 
the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, 20 
or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I 
trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as 
the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitu- 
tionally defend and maintain itself. 

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or vio- 25 
lence ; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon 
the national authority. The power confided to me will 
be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and 
places belonging to the government, and to collect the 



84 Addresses and Letters 

duties and imposts ; but beyond what may be necessary 
for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of 
force against or among the people anywhere. Where 
hostility to the United States, in any interior locality, 
5 shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent 
resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there 
will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among 
the people for that object. While the strict legal right 
may exist in the government to enforce the exercise of 

10 these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating, 
and so nearly impracticable withal, that I deem it better 
to forego for the time the uses of such offices. 

The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished 
in all parts of the Union. So far as possible, the people 

15 everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security which 
is most favourable to calm thought and reflection. The 
course here indicated will be followed unless current 
events and experience shall show a modification or 
change to be proper, and in every case and exigency 

20 my best discretion will be exercised according to cir- 
cumstances actually existing, and with a view and a hope 
of a peaceful solution of the national troubles and the res- 
toration of fraternal sympathies and affections. 

That there are persons in one section or another who 

25 seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of 

any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny ; but if 

there be such, I need address no word to them. To those, 

however, who really love the Union may I not speak? 

Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruc- 



Addresses and Letters 85 

tion of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memo- 
ries, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain 
precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate 
a step while there is any possibility that any portion of 
the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, 5 
while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the 
real ones you fly from — will you risk the commission 
of so fearful a mistake ? 

All profess to be content in the Union if all constitu- 
tional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that 10 
any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has been 
denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is so 
constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of do- 
ing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which 
a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever 15 
been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a major- 
ity should deprive a minority of any clearly written con- 
stitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify 
revolution — certainly would if such a right were a vital 
one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of 30 
minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to 
them by affirmations and negations, guarantees and 
prohibitions, in the Constitution, that controversies never 
arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be 
framed with a provision specifically applicable to every 25 
question which may occur in practical administration. 
No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of rea- 
sonable length contain, express provisions for all possible 
questions. Shall fugitives from labour be surrendered by 



86 Addresses and Letters 

national or by State authority? The Constitution does 
not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the 
Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. 
Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The 
S Constitution does not expressly say. 

From questions of this class spring all our constitu- 
tional controversies, and we divide upon them into ma- 
jorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, 
the majority must, or the government must cease. There 

lo is no other alternative ; for continuing the government is 
acquiescence on one side or the other. 

If a minority in such case will secede rather than ac- 
quiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide 
and ruin them ; for a minority of their own will secede 

15 from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled 
by such minority. For instance, why may not any portion 
of a new confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede 
again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim 
to secede from it ? All who cherish disunion sentiments 

20 are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this. 
Is there such perfect identity of interests among the 
States to compose a new Union, as to produce harmony 
only, and prevent renewed secession? 

Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of 

25 anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional 
checks and Hmitations, and always changing easily with 
deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is 
the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever re- 
jects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. 



Addresses and Letters 87 

Unanimity is impossible ; the rule of a minority, as a per- 
manent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible ; so that, re- 
jecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in 
some form is all that is left. 

I do not forget the position, assumed by some, that 5 
constitutional questions are to be decided by the Su- 
preme Court ; nor do I deny that such decisions must 
be binding, in any case, upon the parties to a suit, as to 
the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very 
high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all 10 
other departments of the government. And while it is 
obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous 
in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being 
limited to that particular case, with the chance that it 
may be overruled and never become a precedent fons 
other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of 
a different practice. At the same time, the candid citi- 
zen must confess that if the policy of the government, 
upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be 
irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the 20 
instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between 
parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased 
to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically 
resigned their government into the hands of that eminent 
tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the 25 
court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may 
not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, 
and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their 
decisions to poHtical purposes. 



88 Addresses and Letters 

One section of our country believes slavery is right, 
and ought to be extended, while the other believes it 
is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the 
only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the 
5 Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the 
foreign slave-trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, as 
any law can ever be in a community where the moral 
sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. 
The great body of the people abide by the dry legal ob- 

lo ligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. 
This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured ; and it would 
be worse in both cases after the separation of the sec- 
tions than before. The foreign slave-trade, now imper- 
fectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived, without 

15 restriction, in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only 
partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by 
the other. 

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot 
remove our respective sections from each other, nor 

20 build an impassable wall between them. A husband and 
wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence and 
beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts 
of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain 
face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, 

25 must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to 
make that intercourse more advantageous or more satis- 
factory after separation than before? Can aliens make 
treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties 
be more faithfully enforced between aHens than laws can 



Addresses and Letters 89 

among friends ? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight 
always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no 
gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old ques- 
tions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you. 

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people 5 
who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the 
existing government, they can exercise their constitutional 
right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dis- 
member or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the 
fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous 10 
of having the National Constitution amended. While I 
make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recog- 
nize the rightful authority of the people over the whole 
subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed 
in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing cir- 15 
cumstances, favour rather than oppose a fair opportunity 
being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture 
to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, 
in that it allows amendments to originate with the people 
themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or 20 
reject propositions originated by others not especially 
chosen for the purpose, and which might not be pre- 
cisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. 
I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution 
— which amendment, however, I have not seen — has 25 
passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Govern- 
ment shall never interfere with the domestic institutions 
of the States, including that of persons held to service. 
To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart 



90 Addresses and Letters 

from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments 
so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be 
implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its be- 
ing made express and irrevocable. 

5 The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the 
people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix 
terms for the separation of the States. The people 
themselves can do this also if they choose ; but the ex- 
ecutive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to 

lo administer the present government, as it came to his hands, : 
and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor. , 

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the 
ultimate justice of the people ? Is there any better or ! 
equal hope in the world? In our present differences is f 

15 either party without faith of being in the right? If the * 
Almighty Ruler of Nations, with his eternal truth and . 
justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the j 
South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the \ 
judgement of this great tribunal of the American people. "> 

20 By the frame of the government under which we live, I 
this same people have wisely given their public servants | 
but little power for mischief ; and have, with equal wisdom,/ 
provided for the return of that little to their own handsj 
at very short intervals. While the people retain theirf 

25 virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme '^ 
of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the gov- 
ernment in the short space of four years. 

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well 
upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by 



Addresses and Letters 91 

taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you 
in hot haste to a step which you would never take delib- 
erately, that object will be frustrated by taking time ; but 
no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as 
are now dissatisfied, still have the old Constitution unim- 5 
paired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own 
framing under it ; while the new administration will have 
no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it 
were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right 
side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for 10 
precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, 
and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken 
this favoured land, are still competent to adjust in the best 
way all our present difficulty. 

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and 15 
not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The 
government will not assail you. You can have no conflict 
without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no 
oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, 
while I shall have the most solemn one to " preserve, 20 
protect, and defend it." 

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. 
We must not be enemies. Though passion may have 
strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The 
mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle- 25 
field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth- 
stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus 
of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, 
by the better angels of our nature. 



92 Addresses and Letters 

March 8, 1861. — Letter to Schuyler Colfax 
Executive Mansion, March 8, 1861. 
Hon. Schuyler Colfax. 

My dear Sir : Your letter of the 6th has just been 
5 handed me by Mr. Baker, of Minnesota. When I said 
to you the other day that I wished to write you a letter, 
I had reference, of course, to my not having offered you 
a cabinet appointment. I meant to say, and now do 
say, you were most honourably and amply recommended, 

10 and a tender of the appointment was not withheld, in any 
part, because of anything happening in 1858.^ Indeed, 
I should have decided as I did easier than I did, had 
that matter never existed. I had partly made up my 
mind in favour of Mr. Smith — not conclusively, of course 

15 — before your name was mentioned in that connexion. 
When you were brought forward I said, " Colfax is a 
young man, is already in position, is running a brilliant 
career, and is sure of a bright future in any event ; with 
Smith, it is now or never." I considered either abun- 

20 dantly competent, and decided on the ground I have stated. 
I now have to beg that you will not do me the injustice to 
suppose for a moment that I remember anything against 
you in malice. 

Yours very truly, 

25 A. Lincoln. 

1 The allusion here is to the fact that in the senatorial campaign 
of 1858 in Illinois, between Lincoln and Douglas, Mr. Colfax was 
understood to favour the re-election of Douglas. 



Addresses and Letters 93 

April i, 1861. — Reply to Secretary Seward's Memo- 
randum 

Executive Mansion, April i, 1861. 
Hon. W. H. Seward. 

My dear Sir : Since parting with you I have been 5 
considering your paper dated this day, and entitled 
'' Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration." 
The first proposition in it is, " First, We are at the end of 
a month's administration, and yet without a policy, either 
domestic or foreign." 10 

At the beginning of that month, in the inaugural, I 
said : " The power confided to me will be used to hold, 
occupy, and possess the property and places belonging 
to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts." 
This had your distinct approval at the time; and, taken 15 
in connexion with the order I immediately gave General 
Scott, directing him to employ every means in his power 
to strengthen and hold the forts, comprises the exact 
domestic policy you now urge, with the single exception 
that it does not propose to abandon Fort Sumter. 20 

Again, I do not perceive how the reinforcement of 
Fort Sumter would be done on a slavery or a party issue, 
while that of Fort Pickens would be on a more national 
and patriotic one. 

The news received yesterday in regard to St. Domingo 25 
certainly brings a new item within the range of our foreign 
poHcy ; but up to that time we have been preparing cir- 
culars and instructions to ministers and the like, all in 



94 Addresses and Letters 

perfect harmony, without even a suggestion that we had 
no foreign poUcy. 

Upon your closing propositions — that " whatever poHcy 
we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of it. 
5 " For this purpose it must be somebody's business to 
pursue and direct it incessantly. 

" Either the President must do it himself, and be all 
the while active in it, or 

" Devolve it on some member of his cabinet. Once 
lo adopted, debates on it must end, and all agree and abide " 
— I remark that if this must be done, I must do it. When 
a general line of policy is adopted, I apprehend there is no 
danger of its being changed without good reason, or con- 
tinuing to be a subject of unnecessary debate ; still, upon 
IS points arising in its progress I wish, and suppose I am 
entitled to have, the advice of all the cabinet. 
Your obedient servant, 

A. Lincoln. 

April i, i86i. — Letter to General Scott 

20 Executive Mansion, April i, 1861. 

Lieutenant-General Scott. 

Would it impose too much labour on General Scott to 

make short comprehensive daily reports to me of what 

occurs in his department, including movements by him- 

25 self, and under his orders, and the receipt of intelligence ? 

If not, I will thank him to do so. 

Your obedient servant, 

A. Lincoln. 



Addresses and Letters 95 

April 13, 1861. — Reply to a Committee from the 
Virginia Convention 

Hon. William Ballard Preston, Alexander H. H. 

Stuart, George W. Randolph, Esq. 

Gentlemen : As a committee of the Virginia Conven- 5 
tion now in session, you present me a preamble and 
resolution in these words : 

Whereas, in the opinion of this Convention, the uncertainty 
which prevails in the public mind as to the policy which the Federal 
Executive intends to pursue toward the seceded States is extremely lo 
injurious to the industrial and commercial interests of the country, 
tends to keep up an excitement which is unfavourable to the adjust- 
ment of pending difhculties, and threatens a disturbance of the 
public peace : therefore 

Resolved, that a committee of three delegates be appointed by 15 
this Convention to wait upon the President of the United States, 
present to him this preamble and resolution, and respectfully ask 
him to communicate to this Convention the policy which the Federal 
Executive intends to pursue in regard to the Confederate States. 

Adopted by the Convention of the State of Virginia, Richmond, 20 
April 8, 1 86 1. 

In answer I have to say that, having at the beginning 
of my official term expressed my intended policy as 
plainly as I was able, it is with deep regret and some 
mortification I now learn that there is great and injurious 25 
uncertainty in the public mind as to what that policy is, 
and what course I intend to pursue. Not having as yet 
seen occasion to change, it is now my purpose to pursue 
the course marked out in the inaugural address. I com- 



g6 Addresses and Letters 

mend a careful consideration of the whole document as 
the best expression I can give of my purposes. 

As I then and therein said, I now repeat : " The power 
confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess 
5 the property and places belonging to the government, 
and to collect the duties and imposts ; but beyond what 
is necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, 
no using of force against or among the people anywhere." 
By the words " property and places belonging to the 

lo government," I chiefly allude to the military posts and 
property which were in the possession of the government 
when it came to my hands. 

But if, as now appears to be true, in pursuit of a pur- 
pose to drive the United States authority from these 

15 places, an unprovoked assault has been made upon Fort 
Sumter, I shall hold myself at liberty to repossess, if I 
can, like places which had been seized before the govern- 
ment was devolved upon me. And in every event I shall, 
to the extent of my ability, repel force by force. In case 

20 it proves true that Fort Sumter has been assaulted, as is 
reported, I shall perhaps cause the United States mails 
to be withdrawn from all the States which claim to have 
seceded, believing that the commencement of actual war 
against the government justifies and possibly demands this. 

25 I scarcely need to say that I consider the miUtary posts 
and property situated within the States which claim to 
have seceded as yet belonging to the government of the 
United States as much as they did before the supposed 
secession. 



Addresses and Letters 97 

Whatever else I may do for the purpose, I shall not 
attempt to collect the duties and imposts by any armed 
invasion of any part of the country ; not meaning by this, 
however, that I may not land a force deemed necessary 
to relieve a fort upon a border of the country. 5 

From the fact that I have quoted a part of the inaugural 
address, it must not be inferred that I repudiate any other 
part, the whole of which I reaffirm, except so far as what 
I now say of the mails may be regarded as a modification. 

May I, 1 86 1. — Letter to Gustavus V. Fox 10 

Washington, D.C, May i, 1861. 
Captain G. V. Fox. 

My dear Sir : I sincerely regret that the failure of the 
late attempt to provision Fort Sumter should be the 
source of any annoyance to you. ' 15 

The practicability of your plan was not, in fact, brought 
to a test. By reason of a gale, well known in advance to 
be possible and not improbable, the tugs, an essential 
part of the plan, never reached the ground ; while, by an 
accident for which you were in no wise responsible, and 20 
possibly I to some extent was, you were deprived of a 
war vessel, with her men, which you deemed of great 
importance to the enterprise. 

I most cheerfully and truly declare that the failure of 
the undertaking has not lowered you a particle, while the 25 
qualities you developed in the effort have greatly height- 
ened you in my estimation. 

For a daring and dangerous enterprise of a similar 

SELEC. FROM LINCOLN — 7 



r 



98 Addresses and Letters 

character you would to-day be the man of all my ac- 
quaintances whom I would select. You and I both an- 
ticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced 
by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if 
5 it should fail ; and it is no small consolation now to feel 
that our anticipation is justified by the result. 
Very truly your friend, 

A. Lincoln. 

May 25, 1861. — Letter to Colonel Ellsworth's 
10 Parents 

Washington, D.C, May 25, 1861. 
To THE Father and Mother of Colonel Elmer E. 
Ellsworth. 
My dear Sir arid Madam : In the untimely loss of your 

15 noble son, our affliction here is scarcely less than your 
own. So much of promised usefulness to one's country, 
and of bright hopes for one's self and friends, have rarely 
been so suddenly dashed as in his fall. In size, in years, 
and in youthful appearance a boy only, his power to com- 

20 mand men was surpassingly great. This power, com- 
bined with a fine intellect, an indomitable energy, and a 
taste altogether military, constituted in him, as seemed to 
me, the best natural talent in that department I ever 
knew. 

25 And yet he was singularly modest and deferential in 
social intercourse. My acquaintance with him began less 
than two years ago ; yet through the latter half of the in- 
tervening period it was as intimate as the disparity of our 



Addresses and Letters 99 

ages and my engrossing engagements would permit. To 
me he appeared to have no indulgences or pastimes ; 
niid I never heard him utter a profane or an intemperate 
word. What was conclusive of his good heart, he never 
f )rgot his parents. The honours he laboured for so laud- s 
<ibly, and for which in the sad end he so gallantly gave 
his life, he meant for them no less than for himself. 

In the hope that it may be no intrusion upon the 
sacredness of your sorrow, I have ventured to address 
you this tribute to the memory of my young friend and 10 
your brave and early fallen child. 

May God give you that consolation which is beyond 
all earthly power. 

Sincerely your friend in a common affliction, 

A. Lincoln. 15 

fySEPTEMBER 2, 1 86 1. LETTER TO GeNERAl FrEMONT 

Washington, D.C, September 2, 1861. 

Major-General Fremont. 

My dear Sir: Two points in your proclamation of 
August 30 give me some anxiety : 20 

First. Should you shoot a man, according to the proc- 
lamation, the Confederates would very certainly shoot 
our best men in their hands in retaliation ; and so, man 
for man, indefinitely. It is, therefore, my order that you 
allow no man to be shot under the proclamation without 25 
first having my approbation or consent. 

Second. I think there is great danger that the closing 



I 



loo Addresses and Letters 

paragraph, in relation to the confiscation of property and 
the liberating slaves of traitorous owners, will alarm our 
Southern Union friends and turn them against us ; per- 
haps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky. Allow 

5 me, therefore, to ask that you will, as of your own motion, 
modify that paragraph so as to conform to the first and 
fourth sections of the act of Congress entitled, " An act 
to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes," 
approved August 6, 1861, and a copy of which act I 

10 herewith send you. 

This letter is written in a spirit of caution, and not of 
censure. I send it by special messenger, in order that it 
may certainly and speedily reach you. 

Yours very truly, 

15 A. Lincoln. 

September 22, 1861. — Letter to O. H. Browning 
{Private and Confidential) 
Executive Mansion, Washington, September 22, 1861. 
Hon. O. H. Browning. 
20 My dear Sir : Yours of the 1 7th is just received ; and 
coming from you, I confess it astonishes me. That you 
should object to my adhering to a law which you had as- 
sisted in making and presenting to me less than a month 
before is odd enough. But this is a very small part. 
25 General Fremont's proclamation as to confiscation of 
property and the liberation of slaves is purely political and 
not within the range of military law or necessity. If a 



Addresses and Letters loi 

commanding general finds a necessity to seize the farm 
of a private owner for a pasture, an encampment, or a 
fortification, he has the right to do so, and to so hold it as 
long as the necessity lasts ; and this is within military law, 
because within military necessity. But to say the farm 5 
shall no longer belong to the owner, or his heirs forever, and 
this as well when the farm is not needed for military pur- 
poses as when it is, is purely political, without the savour 
of military law about it. And the same is true of slaves. 
If the general needs them, he can seize them and use 10 
them ; but when the need is past, it is not for him to fix 
their permanent future condition. That must be settled 
according to laws made by lawmakers, and not by mili- 
tary proclamations. The proclamation in the point in 
question is simply " dictatorship." It assumes that the 15 
general may do anything he pleases — confiscate the lands 
and free the slaves of loyal people, as well as of disloyal 
ones. And going the whole figure, I have no doubt, would 
be more popular with some thoughtless people than that 
which has been done ! But I cannot assume this reckless 20 
position, nor allow others to assume it on my responsi- 
bility. 

You speak of it as being the only means of saving the 
government. On the contrary, it is itself the surrender 
of the government. Can it be pretended that it is any 25 
longer the Government of the United States — any gov- 
ernment of constitution and laws — wherein a general or 
a president may make permanent rules of property by 
proclamation? I do not say Congress might not with 



I02 Addresses and Letters 

propriety pass a law on the point, just such as General 
Fremont proclaimed. I do not say I might not, as a 
member of Congress, vote for it. What I object to is, 
that I, as President, shall expressly or impliedly seize and 
5 exercise the permanent legislative functions of the govern- 
ment. 

So much as to principle. Now as to policy. No doubt 
the thing was popular in some quarters, and would have 
been more so if it had been a general declaration of eman- 

lo cipation. The Kentucky legislature would not budge till 
that proclamation was modified ; and General Anderson 
telegraphed me that on the news of General Fremont 
having actually issued deeds of manumission, a whole com- 
pany of our volunteers threw down their arms and dis- 

15 banded. I was so assured as to think it probable that 
the very arms we had furnished Kentucky would be turned 
against us. I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as 
to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we cannot hold 
Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland. These all against us, 

20 and the job on our hands is too large for us. We would 
as well consent to separation at once, including the sur- 
render of this capital. On the contrary, if you will give 
up your restlessness for new positions, and back me man- 
' fully on the grounds upon which you and other kind friends 

25 gave me the election and have approved in my public 
documents, we shall go through triumphantly. You must 
not understand I took my course on the proclamation be- 
cause of Kentucky. I took the same ground in a private 
letter to General Fremont before I heard from Kentucky. 



Addresses and Letters 103 

You think I am inconsistent because I did not also for- 
bid General Fremont to shoot men under the proclama- 
tion. I understand that part to be within military law, but I 
also think, and so privately wrote General Fremont, that it 
is impolitic in this, that our adversaries have the power, 5 
and will certainly exercise it, to shoot as many of our men 
as we shoot of theirs. I did not say this in the public 
letter, because it is a subject I prefer not to discuss in the 
hearing of our enemies. 

There has been no thought of removing General Fr^- 10 
mont on any ground connected with his proclamation, and 
if there has been any wish for his removal on any ground, 
our mutual friend Sam. Glover can probably tell you 
what it was. I hope no real necessity for it exists on any 

ground. 15 

Your friend, as ever, 

A. Lincoln. 



October 21, 1861. — Letter to Archbishop Hughes 
Washington, D.C, October 21, 1861. 

Archbishop Hughes. 20 

Right reverend Sir : lam sure you will pardon me if 
in my ignorance I do not address you with technical cor- 
rectness. I find no law authorizing the appointment of 
chaplains for our hospitals ; and yet the services of chap- 
lains are more needed, perhaps, in the hospitals than with 25 
the healthy soldiers in the field. With this view, I have 
given a sort of quasi appointment (a copy of which I 



I04 Addresses and Letters 

enclose) to each of three Protestant ministers, who have 
accepted and entered upon the duties. 

If you perceive no objection, I will thank you to give 
me the name or names of one or more suitable persons 
5 of the Catholic Church, to whom I may with propriety 
tender the same service. 

Many thanks for your kind and judicious letters to 
Governor Seward, and which he regularly allows me both 
the pleasure and the profit of perusing. With the highest 
lo respect, 

Your obedient servant, 

A. Lincoln. 

November io, i86i. — Letter to General McClernand 
Washington, November lo, 1861. 

IS Brigadier-General McClernand. 

My dear Sir: This is not an official, but a social letter. 
You have had a battle, and without being able to judge 
as to the precise measure of its value, I think it is safe to 
say that you and all with you have done honour to your- 

20 selves and the flag, and service to the country. Most 
gratefully do I thank you and them. In my present 
position I must care for the whole nation ; but I hope it 
will be no injustice to any other State for me to indulge 
a Httle home pride that Illinois does not disappoint us. 

25 1 have just closed a long interview with Mr. Washburne, 
in which he has detailed the many difficulties you and 
those with you labour under. Be assured we do not forget 
or neglect you. Much, very much, goes undone j but it 



Addresses and Letters 105 

is because we have not the power to do it faster than we 
do. Some of your forces are without arms, but the same 
is true here and at every other place where we have con- 
siderable bodies of troops. The plain matter of fact is, 
our good people have rushed to the rescue of the govern- 5 
ment faster than the government can find arms to put 
into their hands. It would be agreeable to each division 
of the army to know its own precise destination ; but the 
government cannot immediately, nor inflexibly at any 
time, determine as to all ; nor, if determined, can it tell 10 
its friends without at the same time telling its enemies. 
We know you do all as wisely and well as you can ; and 
you will not be deceived if you conclude the same is true 
of us. Please give my respects and thanks to all. 

Yours very truly, 15 

A. Lincoln. 

February 3, 1862. — Letter to General G. B. 

McClellan 

Executive Mansion, Washington, February 3, 1862. 
Major- General McClellan. 20 

My dear Sir : You and I have distinct and different 
plans for a movement of the Army of the Potomac — 
yours to be down the Chesapeake, up the Rappahannock 
to Urbana, and across land to the terminus of the railroad 
on the York River ; mine to move directly to a point on 25 
the railroad southwest of Manassas. 

If you will give me satisfactory answers to the following 
questions, I shall gladly yield my plan to yours. 



io6 Addresses and Letters 

First. Does not your plan involve a greatly larger 
expenditure of time and money than mine ? 

Second. Wherein is a victory more certain by your plan 
than mine? 
5 Third. Wherein is a victory more valuable by your 
plan than mine ? 

Fourth. In fact, would it not be less valuable in this, 
that it would break no great line of the enemy's commu- 
nications, while mine would ? 
lo Fifth. In case of disaster, would not a retreat be more 
difficult by your plan than mine ? 

Yours truly, 

Abraham Lincoln. 
Major- General McClellan. 

IS Memorandum accompa?iying Letter of President Lincoln 
to General McClellan, dated February 3, 1862 
First. Suppose the enemy should attack us in force 
before we reach the Occoquan, what ? 

Second. Suppose the enemy in force shall dispute the 
20 crossing of the Occoquan, what? In view of this, might 
it not be safest for us to cross the Occoquan at Colchester, 
rather than at the village of Occoquan? This would cost 
the enemy two miles more of travel to meet us, but would, on 
the contrary, leave us two miles farther from our ultimate 
25 destination. 

Third. Suppose we reach Maple Valley without an 
attack, will we not be attacked there in force by the 
enemy marching by the several roads from Manassas ; 
and if so, what ? 



Addresses and Letters 107 

March 6, 1862. — Message to Congress Recommending 

Compensated Emancipation 

Fellow-citizens of the Senate a7id House of Repr-esenta- 
tives : I recommend the adoption of a joint resolution by 
your honourable bodies, which shall be substantially as s 
follows : 

Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any 
State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to 
such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State, in its discretion, 
to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced lo 
by such change of system. 

If the proposition contained in the resolution does not 
meet the approval of Congress and the country, there is 
the end ; but if it does command such approval, I deem 
it of importance that the States and people immediately 15 
interested should be at once distinctly notified of the fact, 
so that they may begin to consider whether to accept or 
reject it. The Federal Government would find its highest 
interest in such a measure, as one of the most efficient 
means of self-preservation. The leaders of the existing 20 
insurrection entertain the hope that this government will 
ultimately be forced to acknowledge the independence 'of 
some part of the disaff'ected region, and that all the slave 
States north of such part will then say, "The Union 
for which we have struggled being already gone, we now 25 
choose to go with the Southern section." To deprive 
them of this hope substantially ends the rebellion ; and 
the initiation of emancipation completely deprives them 



io8 Addresses and Letters 

of it as to all the States initiating it. The point is not 
that all the States tolerating slavery would very soon, if 
at all, initiate emancipation ; but that while the offer is 
equally made to all, the- more Northern shall, by such in- 
5 itiation, make it certain to the more Southern that in no 
event will the former ever join the latter in their proposed 
confederacy. I say "initiation" because, in my judge- 
ment, gradual and not sudden emancipation is better for 
all. In the mere financial or pecuniary view, any mem- 

lo ber of Congress, with the census tables and treasury re- 
ports before him, can readily see for himself how very 
soon the current expenditures of this war would purchase, 
at fair valuation, all the slaves in any named State. Such 
a proposition on the part of the General Government sets 

15 up no claim of a right by Federal authority to interfere 
with slavery within State limits, referring, as it does, the 
absolute control of the subject in each case to the State 
and its people immediately interested. It is proposed as 
a matter of perfectly free choice with them. 

20 In the annual message, last December, I thought fit to 
say, "The Union must be preserved, and hence all indis- 
pensable means must be employed." I said this not hastily, 
but dehberately. War has been made,. and continues to 
be, an indispensable means to this end. A practical reac- 

25 knowledgment of the national authority would render the 
war unnecessary, and it would at once cease. If, however, 
resistance continues, the war must also continue ; and it is 
impossible to foresee all the incidents which may attend 
and all the ruin which may follow it. Such as may seem 



I 



? 



Addresses and Letters 109 

indispensable, or may obviously promise great efficiency, 
toward ending the struggle, must and will come. 

The proposition now made, though an offer only, I hope it 
may be esteemed no offence to ask whether the pecuniary 
consideration tendered would not be of more value to the s 
States and private persons concerned than are the insti- 
tution and property in it, in the present aspect of affairs ? 

While it is true that the adoption of the proposed reso- 
lution would be merely initiatory, and not within itself a 
practical measure, it is recommended in the hope that it 10 
would soon lead to important practical results. In full 
view of my great responsibility to my God and to my 
country, I earnestly beg the attention of Congress and the 
people to the subject. 



i 



Abraham Lincoln. 



Washington, March 6, 1862. 



March 9, 1862. — Letter to Henry J. Raymond 
{Private) 
Executive Mansion, Washington, March 9, 1862. 
Hon. Henry J. Raymond. 2c 

My dear Sir : I am grateful to the New York journals, 
and not less so to the Ti?nes than to others, for their 
kind notices of the late special message to Congress. 

Your paper, however, intimates that the proposition, 
though well intentioned, must fail on the score of expense. 2 = 
I do hope you will reconsider this. Have you noticed the 
facts that less than one half day's cost of this war would 



iio Addresses and Letters 

pay for all the slaves in Delaware at ^400 per head — 
that eighty-seven days' cost of this war would pay for all 
in Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Kentucky, 
and Missouri at the same price? Were those States to 

5 take the step, do you doubt that it would shorten the war 
more than eighty-seven days, and thus be an actual saving 
of expense ? 

Please look at these things and consider whether there 
should not be another article in the Times. 

o Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



March 19, 1862. — Letter to Dr. S. B. Tobey 

Executive Mansion, Washington, March 19, 1862. 
Dr. Samuel Boyd Tobey. 

15 My dear Sir: A domestic affliction, of which doubtless 
you are informed, has delayed me so long in making 
acknowledgment of the very kind and appropriate letter 
signed on behalf and by direction of a meeting of the 
representatives of the Society of Friends for New England, 

20 held at' Providence, Rhode Island, the 8th of second 
month, 1862, by Samuel Boyce, clerk, and presented to 
me by yourself and associates. 

Engaged as I am in a great war, I fear it will be diffi- 
cult for the world to understand how fully I appreciate 

25 the principles of peace inculcated in this letter and every- 
where by the Society of Friends. 

Grateful to ' the good people you represent for the 



I 



Addresses and Letters 1 1 1 

prayers in behalf of our common country, I look forward 
hopefully to an early end of war and return to peace. 
Your obliged friend, 

A. Lincoln. 

April 9, 1862. — Letter to General G. B. McClellans 

Washington, April 9, 1862. 
Major-General McClellan. 

My dear Sir: Your dispatches, complaining that you 
are not properly sustained, while they do not offend me, 
do pain me very much. 10 

Blenker's division was withdrawn from you before you 
left here, and you knew the pressure under which I did 
it, and, as I thought, acquiesced in it — certainly not 
without reluctance. 

After you left I ascertained that less than 20,000 un- 15 
organized men, without a single field-battery, were all 
you designed to be left for the defence of Washington 
and Manassas Junction, and part of this even was to go to 
General Hooker's old position ; General Banks's corps, 
once designed for Manassas Junction, was divided and 20 
tied up on the Hne of Winchester and Strasburg, and 
could not leave it without again exposing the upper 
Potomac and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. This 
presented (or would present, when McDowell and Sum- 
ner should be gone) a great temptation to the enemy to 25 
turn back from the Rappahannock and sack Washington. 
My explicit order that Washington should, by the judge- 
ment of all the commanders of corps, be left entirely 



\ 



112 Addresses and Letters 

secure, had been neglected. It was precisely this that 
drove me to detain McDowell. 

I do not forget that I was satisfied with your arrange- 
ment to leave Banks at Manassas Junction ; but when 
5 that arrangement was broken up and nothing was sub- 
stituted for it, of course I was not satisfied. I was con- 
strained to substitute something for it myself. 

And now allow me to ask, do you really think I should 
permit the line from Richmond via Manassas Junction to 

lo this city to be entirely open, except what resistance 
could be presented by less than 20,000 unorganized 
troops? This is a question which the country will not 
allow me to evade. 

There is a curious mystery about the number of the 

15 troops now with you. When I telegraphed you on the 
6th, saying you had over 100,000 with you, I had just 
obtained from the Secretary of War a statement, taken as 
he said from your own returns, making 108,000 then 
with you and en route to you. You now say you will have 

20 but 85,000 when all en route to you shall have reached 
you. How can this discrepancy of 23,000 be accounted 
for? 

As to General Wool's command, I understand it is 
doing for you precisely what a like number of your own 

25 would have to do if that command was away. I suppose 
the whole force which has gone forward to you is with 
you by this time ; and if so, I think it is the precise time 
for you to strike a blow. By delay the enemy will rela- 
tively gain upon you — that is, he will gain faster by 



I 



Addresses and Letters 113 

fortifications and reinforcements than you can by rein- 
forcements alone. 

And once more let me tell you it is indispensable to 
you that you strike a blow. I am powerless to help this. 
You will do me the justice to remember I always insisted 5 
that going down the bay in search of a field, instead of 
fighting at or near Manassas, was only shifting and not 
surmounting a difficulty; that we would find the same 
enemy and the same or equal entrenchments at either 
place. The country will not fail to note — is noting now 10 
— that the present hesitation to move upon an entrenched 
enemy is but the story of Manassas repeated. 

I beg to assure you that I have never written you or 
spoken to you in greater kindness of feeling than now, 
nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you, so far as in my 15 
most anxious judgement I consistently can ; but you must 
act. 

Yours very truly, . 

A. Lincoln. 

April 10, 1862. — Telegram to R. Yates and 20 
Wm. Butler 

Washington, April 10, 1862. 
Hon. R. Yates and William Butler, Springfield, Illinois : 
I fully appreciate General Pope's splendid achieve- 
ments, with their invaluable results ; but you must know 25 
that major-generalships in the regular army are not as 
plenty as blackberries. 

A. Lincoln. 

SELEC. FROM LINCOLN — 8 



114 Addresses and Letters 

May I, 1862. — Telegram to General G. B. 
McClellan 
Executive Mansion, Washington, May i, 1862. 
Major-General McClellan : 
5 Your call for Parrott guns from Washington alarms me, 
chiefly because it argues indefinite procrastination. Is 
anything to be done ? 

A. Lincoln. 

May 24, 1862. — Telegram to General J. C. 
10 Fremont 

War Department, May 24, 1862. 4. p.m. 
Major-General Fremont, Franklin : 

You are authorized to purchase the 400 horses, or take 
them wherever or however you can get them. j 

15 The exposed condition of General Banks makes his 
immediate relief a point of paramount importance. You 
are therefore directed by the President to move against 
Jackson at Harrisonburg and operate against the enemy 
in such way as to relieve Banks. This movement must 
20 be made immediately. You will acknowledge the receipt 
of this order, and specify the hour it is received by you. 

A. Lincoln. 

May 24, 1862. — Telegram to General J. C. j 
Fremont ^ 

25 War Department, May 24, 1862. 7.15 p.m. 

Major-General Fremont, Franklin, Virginia : 

Many thanks for the promptness with which you hav 



Addresses and Letters 115 

answered that you will execute the order. Much — 
perhaps all — depends upon the celerity with which you 
can execute it. Put the utnciost speed into it. Do not 
lose a minute. 

A. Lincoln, s 



May 25, 1862. — Telegram to General R. Saxton 

War Department, May 25, 1862. 4.15 p.m. 

General Saxton, Harper's Ferry : 

If Banks reaches Martinsburg, is he any the better for 
it? Will not the enemy cut him from thence to Harper's 10 
Ferry? Have you sent anything to meet him and assist 
him at Martinsburg? This is an inquiry, not an order. 

A. Lincoln. 



May 25, 1862. — Telegram to General R. Saxton 

War Department, May 25, 1862. 6.50 p.m. 15 

General Saxton, Harper's Ferry : 

One good six-gun battery, complete in its men and 
appointments, is now on its way to you from Baltimore. 
Eleven other guns, of different sorts, are on their way to 
you from here. Hope they will all reach you before 20 
morning. As you have but 2500 men at Harper's Ferry, 
where are the rest which were in that vicinity and which 
we have sent forward? Have any of them been cut off? 

A. Lincoln. 



ii6 Addresses and Letters 

May 25, 1862. — Telegram to General R. Saxton 

War Department, May 25, 1862. 

General Saxton, Harper's Ferry : 

I fear you have mistaken me. I did not mean to ques- 
5 tion the correctness of your conduct ; on the contrary, I 
approve what you have done. As the 2500 reported by 
you seemed small to me, I feared some had got to Banks 
and been cut off with him. Please tell me the exact 
number you now have in hand. 
10 A. Lincoln. 

May 31, 1862. — Telegram to General G. A. McCall 
Washington, May 31, 1862. 3.35. 
Brigadier-General McCall, 

Commanding, Fredericksburg : 
IS Are you about to withdraw from Fredericksburg ; and 
if so, why, and by whose orders ? 

A. Lincoln. 

July 12, 1862. — Appeal to Favour Compensated Eman- 
cipation, read by the President to Border-State 
20 Representatives 

Gentlemen : After the adjournment of Congress, now 

very near, I shall have no opportunity of seeing you for 

several months. Believing that you of the border States 

hold more power for good than any other equal number 

25 of members, I feel it a duty which I cannot justifiably 



Addresses and Letters 117 

waive to make this appeal to you. I intend no reproach 
or complaint when I assure you that, in my opinion, 
if you all had voted for the resolution in the gradual- 
emancipation message of last March, the war would now 
be substantially ended. And the plan therein proposed 5 
is yet one of the most potent and swift means of ending 
it. Let the States which are in rebellion see definitely 
and certainly that in no event will the States you repre- 
sent ever join their proposed confederacy, and they can- 
not much longer maintain the contest. But you cannot 10 
divest them of their hope to ultimately have you with 
them so long as you show a determination to perpetuate 
the institution within your own States. Beat them at 
elections, as you have overwhelmingly done, and, noth- 
ing daunted, they still claim you as their own. You and 15 
I know what the lever of their power is. Break that 
lever before their faces, and they can shake you no more 
forever. Most of you have treated me with kindness and 
consideration, and I trust you will not now think I im- 
properly touch what is exclusively your own, when, for 20 
the sake of the whole country, I ask. Can you, for your 
States, do better than to take the course I urge? Dis- 
carding punctilio and maxims adapted to more manage- 
able times, and looking only to the unprecedentedly stern 
facts of our case, can you do better in any possible event? 25 
You prefer that the constitutional relation of the States to 
the nation shall be practically restored without disturb- 
ance of the institution ; and if this were done, my whole 
duty in this respect, under the Constitution and my oath 



Ii8 Addresses and Letters 

of office, would be performed. But it is not done, and we 
are trying to accomplish it by war. The incidents of the 
war cannot be avoided. If the war continues long, as it 
must if the object be not sooner attained, the institution 
5 in your States will be extinguished by mere friction and 
abrasion — by the mere incidents of the war. It will be 
gone, and you will have nothing valuable in lieu of it. 
Much of its value is gone already. How much better for 
you and for your people to take the step which at once 

lo shortens the war and secures substantial compensation 
for that which is sure to be wholly lost in any other event ! 
How much better to thus save the money which else we 
sink forever in the war ! How much better to do it while 
we can, lest the war ere long render us pecuniarily unable 

15 to do it ! How much better for you as seller, and the na- 
tion as buyer, to sell out and buy out that without which 
the war could never have been, than to sink both the 
thing to be sold and the price of it in cutting one an- 
other's throats ? I do not speak of emancipation at once, 

20 but of a decision at once to emancipate gradually. Room 
in South America for colonization can be obtained cheaply 
and in abundance, and when numbers shall be large enough 
to be company and encouragement for one another, the 
freed people will not be so reluctant to go. 

25 I am pressed with a difficulty not yet mentioned — ■ 
one which threatens division among those who, united, 
are none too strong. An instance of it is known to you. 
General Hunter is an honest man. He was, and I hope 
still is, my friend. I valued him none the less for his 



Addresses and Letters 119 

agreeing with me in the general wish that all men every- 
where could be free. He proclaimed all men free within 
certain States, and I repudiated the proclamation. He 
expected more good and less harm from the measure than 
I could believe would follow. Yet, in repudiating it, I 5 
gave dissatisfaction, if not offence, to many whose sup- 
port the country cannot afford to lose. And this is not 
the end of it. The pressure in this direction is still upon 
me, and is increasing. By conceding what I now ask, 
you can relieve me, and, much more, can relieve the 10 
country, in this important point. Upon these considera- 
tions I have again begged your attention to the message 
of March last. Before leaving the capital, consider and 
discuss it among yourselves. You are patriots and states- 
men, and as such I pray you consider this proposition, 15 
and at the least commend it to the consideration of your 
States and people. As you would perpetuate popular 
government for the best people in the world, I beseech 
you that you do in no wise omit this. Our common 
country is in great peril, demanding the loftiest views 20 
and boldest action to bring it speedy rehef. Once re- 
lieved, its form of government is saved to the world, its 
beloved history and cherished memories are vindicated, 
and its happy future fully assured and rendered incon- 
ceivably grand. To you, more than to any others, the 25 
privilege is given to assure that happiness and swell that 
grandeur, and to Hnk your own names therewith forever. 



I20 Addresses and Letters 

August 9, 1862. — Letter to J. M. Clay 
Executive Mansion, Washington, August 9, 1862. 
Mr. John M. Clay. 

My dear Sir : The snuff-box you sent, with the accom- 
S panying note, was received yesterday. Thanks for this 
memento of your great and patriotic father. Thanks 
also for the assurance that, in these days of derehction, 
you remain true to his principles. In the concurrent 
sentiment of your venerable mother, so long the partner 
10 of his bosom and his honours, and lingering now where 
he was but for the call to rejoin him where he is, I recog- 
nize his voice, speaking, as it ever spoke, for the Union, 
the Constitution, and the freedom of mankind. 
Your obedient servant, 
IS A. Lincoln. 

August 22, 1862. — Letter to Horace Greeley 
Executive Mansion, Washington, August 22, 1862. 
Hon. Horace Greeley. 

Dear Sir: I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed 
20 to myself through the New York Tribune, If there 
be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I 
may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, con- 
trovert them. If there be in it any inferences which I 
may beheve to be falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, 
25 argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an 
impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an 
old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be right. 



I 



Addresses and Letters 121 

As to the policy I " seem to be pursuing," as you say, 
I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. 

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest 
way under the Constitution. The sooner the national 
authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be 5 
"the Union as it was." If there be those who would not 
save the Union unless they could at the same time save 
slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those 
who would not save the Union unless they could at the 
same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. 10 
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the 
Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. 
If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I 
would do it ; and if I could save it by freeing all the 
slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing 15 
some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What 
I do about slavery and the coloured race, I do because I 
believe it helps to save the Union ; and what I forbear, 
I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save 
the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall beheve what 20 
I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever 
I shall beheve doing more will help the cause. I shall try 
to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall 
adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. 

I have here stated my purpose according to my view 25 
of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft- 
expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could 
be free. Yours, 

A. Lincoln. 



122 Addresses and Letters 

September 13, 1862. — Reply to a Committee from the 
Religious Denominations of Chicago, asking the 
President to issue a Proclamation of Emancipation 

The subject presented in the memorial is one upon 
5 which I have thought much for weeks past, and I may even 
say for months. I am approached with the most opposite 
opinions and advice, and that by rehgious men who are 
equally certain that they represent the divine will. I am 
sure that either the one or the other class is mistaken in that 

10 belief, and perhaps in some respects both. I hope it will 
not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that 
God would reveal his will to others on a point so connected 
with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it 
directly to me ; for, unless I am more deceived in myself 

15 than I often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will 
of Providence in this matter. And if I can learn what it 
is, I will do it. These are not, however, the days of mir- 
acles, and I suppose it will be granted that I am not to 
expect a direct revelation. I must study the plain physi- 

20 cal facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn 
what appears to be wise and right. 

The subject is difficult, and good men do not agree. 
For instance, the other day four gentlemen of standing 
and intelligence from New York called as a delegation on 

85 business connected with the war ; but, before leaving, two 
of them earnestly beset me to proclaim general emanci- 
pation, upon which the other two at once attacked them. 
You know also that the last session of Congress had a decided 



I 



Addresses and Letters 123 

majority of antislavery men, yet they could not unite on 
this poUcy. And the same is true of the rehgious people. 
Why, the rebel soldiers are praying with a great deal more 
earnestness, I fear, than our own troops, and expecting 
God to favour their side ; for one of our soldiers who had 5 
been taken prisoner told Senator Wilson a few days since 
that he met with nothing so discouraging as the evident 
sincerity of those he was among in their prayers. But we 
will talk over the merits of the case. 

What good would a proclamation of emancipation from 10 
me do, especially as we are now situated ? I do not want 
to issue a document that the whole world will see must 
necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the 
comet. Would my word free the slaves, when I cannot 
even enforce the Constitution in the rebel States? Is 15 
there a single court, or magistrate, or individual that would 
be influenced by it there ? And what reason is there to 
think it would have any greater effect upon the slaves than 
the late law of Congress, which I approved, and which 
offers protection and freedom to the slaves of rebel masters 20 
who come within our lines? Yet I cannot learn that that 
law has caused a single slave to come over to us. And 
suppose they could be induced by a proclamation of free- 
dom from me to throw themselves upon us, what should 
we do with them? How can we feed and care for such a 25 
multitude ? General Butler wrote me a few days since 
that he was issuing more rations to the slaves who have 
rushed to him than to all the white troops under 
his command. They eat, and that is all ; though it is true 



124 Addresses and Letters 

General Butler is feeding the whites also by the thousand, 
for it nearly amounts to a famine there. If, now, the pres- 
sure of the war should call off our forces from New Orleans 
to defend some other point, what is to prevent the masters 

5 from reducing the blacks to slavery again ? For I am told 
that whenever the rebels take any black prisoners, free or 
slave, they immediately auction them off. They did so 
with those they took from a boat that was aground in the 
Tennessee River a few days ago. xA-nd then I am very 

lo ungenerously attacked for it ! For instance, when, after 
the late battles at and near Bull Run, an expedition went 
out from Washington under a flag of truce to bury the 
dead and bring in the wounded, and the rebels seized 
the blacks who went along to help, and sent them into 

15 slavery, Horace Greeley said in his paper that the 
government would probably do nothing about it. What 
could I do? 

Now, then, tell me, if you please, what possible result 
of good would follow the issuing of such a proclamation 

20 as you desire? Understand, I raise no objections against 
it on legal or constitutional grounds ; for, as commander- 
in-chief of the army and navy, in time of war I suppose I 
have a right to take any measure which may best subdue 
the enemy ; nor do I urge objections of a moral nature, 

25 in view of possible consequences of insurrection and mas- 
sacre at the South. I view this matter as a practical war 
measure, to be decided on according to the advantages 
or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the 
rebellion. 



I 



Addresses and Letters 125 

I admit that slavery is the root of the rebellion, or at least 
its sine qua non} The ambition of politicians may have 
instigated them to act, but they would have been impotent 
without slavery as their instrument. I will also concede 
that emancipation would help us in Europe, and convince 5 
them that we are incited by something more than ambition. 
I grant, further, that it would help somewhat at the North, 
though not so much, I fear, as you and those you repre- 
sent imagine. Still, some additional strength would be 
added in that way to the war, and then, unquestionably, 10 
it would weaken the rebels by drawing off their labourers, 
which is of great importance ; but I am not so sure we 
could do much with the blacks. If we were to arm them, 
I fear that in a few weeks the arms would be in the hands 
of the rebels ; and, indeed, thus far we have not had arms 15 
enough to equip our white troops. I will mention another 
thing, though it meet only your scorn and contempt. 
There are fifty thousand bayonets in the Union armies from 
the border slave States. It would be a serious matter if, 
in consequence of a proclamation such as you desire, they 20 
should go over to the rebels. I do not think they all 
would — not so many, indeed, as a year ago, or as six 
months ago — not so many to-day as yesterday. Every 
day increases their Union feeling. They are also getting 
their pride enlisted, and want to beat the rebels. Let me 25 
say one thing more : I think you should admit that we 
already have an important principle to rally and unite the 
people, in the fact that constitutional government is at 
^ An indispensable condition. 



126 Addresses and Letters 

stake. This is a fundamental idea going down about as 
deep as anything. 

Do not misunderstand me because I have mentioned 
these objections. They indicate the difficulties that have 
5 thus far prevented my action in some such way as you de- 
sire. I have not decided against a proclamation of liberty 
to the slaves, but hold the matter under advisement ; and 
I can assure you that the subject is on my mind, by day 
and night, more than any other. Whatever shall appear 
lo to be God's will, I will do. I trust that in the freedom 
with which I have canvassed your views I have not in any 
respect injured your feelings. 

November 24, 1862. — Letter to Carl Schurz 
Executive Mansion, Washington, November 24, 1862. 

15 General Carl Schurz. 

My dear Sir : I have just received and read your letter 
of the 20th. The purport of it is that we lost the late 
elections and the Administration is failing because the 
war is unsuccessful, and that I must not flatter myself 

20 that I am not justly to blame for it. I certainly know 
that if the war fails, the Administration fails, and that I 
will be blamed for it, whether I deserve it or not. And 
I ought to be blamed if I could do better. You think I 
could do better; therefore you blame me already. I 

25 think I could not do better ; therefore I blame you for 
blaming me. I understand you now to be willing to ac- 
cept the help of men who are not Republicans, provided 



Addresses and Letters 127 

they have "heart in it." Agreed. I want no others. 
But who is to be the judge of hearts, or of " heart in it "? 
If I must discard my own judgement and take yours, I 
must also take that of others ; and by the time I should 
reject all I should be advised to reject, I should have 5 
none left, Republicans or oth/srs — not even yourself. 
For be assured, my dear sir, there are men who have 
" heart in it" that think you are performing your part as • 
poorly as you think I am performing mine. I certainly 
have been dissatisfied with the slowness of Buell and 10 
McClellan ; but before I relieved them I had great fears 
I should not find successors to them who would do better ; 
and I am sorry to add that I have seen little since to 
relieve those fears. 

I do not clearly see the prospect of any more rapid 15 
movements. I fear we shall at last find out that the diffi- 
culty is in our case rather than in particular generals. I 
wish to disparage no one — certainly not those who sym- 
pathize with me ; but I must say I need success more 
than I need sympathy, and that I have not seen the so 20 
much greater evidence of getting success from my sympa- 
thizers than from those who are denounced as the contrary. 
It does seem to me that in the field the two classes have 
been very much alike in what they have done and what 
they have failed to do. In sealing their faith with their 25 
blood, Baker and Lyon and Bohlen and Richardson, Re- 
publicans, did all that men could do ; but did they any 
more than Kearny and Stevens and Reno and Mansfield, 
none of whom were Republicans, and some at least of 



128 Addresses and Letters 

whom have been bitterly and repeatedly denounced to 
me as secession sympathizers ? I will not perform the un- 
grateful task of comparing cases of failure. 

In answer to your question, " Has it not been publicly 
5 staged in the newspapers, and apparently proved as a fact, 
that from the commencement of the war the enemy was 
continually supplied with information by some of the con- 
fidential subordinates of as important an officer as Adju- 
tant-General Thomas?" I must say "No," as far as my 
lo knowledge extends. And I add that if you can give any 
tangible evidence upon the subject, I will thank you to 
come to this city and do so. 

Very truly your friend, 

A. Lincoln. 

IS January i, 1863. — Final Emancipation Proclamation 

By the President of the United States of America : 

A Proclamation 

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in 
the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and j 
20 sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of 
the United States, containing, among other things, the 
following, to wit : 

" That on the first day of January, in the year of our 

Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all 

25 persons held as slaves within any State, or designated 

part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in 

rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thence- 



Addresses and Letters 129 

forward, and forever free ; and the Executive Govern- 
ment of the United States, including the military and 
naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the 
freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to 
repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they s 
may make for their actual freedom. 

" That the Executive will, on the first day of January 
aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts 
of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively 
shall then be in rebellion against the United States ; and 10 
the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that 
day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the 
United States by members chosen thereto at elections 
wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State 
shall have participated, shall in the absence of strong coun- 15 
tervailing testimony be deemed conclusive evidence that 
such State and the people thereof are not then in. rebellion 
against the United States." 

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the 
United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as 20 
commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United 
States, in time of actual armed rebelHon against the au- 
thority and government of the United States, and as a fit 
and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, 
do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord 25 
one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in ac- 
cordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed 
for the full period of 100 days from the day first above 

SELEC. FROM LINCOLN — 9 



130 Addresses and Letters 

mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts 
of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are 
this day in rebellion against the United States, the fol- 
lowing, to wit : 

5 Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of 
St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, 
St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, 
St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of 
New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, 

10 South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the 
forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also 
the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Eliza- 
beth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including 
the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which ex- 

15 cepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this 
proclamation were not issued. 

And by virtue of the power ?.nd for the purpose afore- 
said, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves 
within said designated States and parts of States are, and 

20 henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive 
Government of the United States, including the military 
and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain 
the freedom of said persons. 

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to 

25 be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary 
self-defence ; and I recommend to them that, in all cases 
when allowed, they labour faithfully for reasonable wages. 
And I further declare and make known that such per- 
sons of suitable condition will be received into the armed 



Addresses and Letters 131 

service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, 
stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts 
in said service. 

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of 
justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military neces- 5 
sity, I invoke the considerate judgement of mankind and 
the gracious favour of Almighty God. 

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and 
caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the city of Washington, this first day 10 
of January, in the year of our Lord one thou- 
[L. S.] sand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the 
independence of the United States of America 
the eighty-seventh. 

Abraham Lincoln. 15 
By the President : William H. Seward, Secretary of State. 

March 23, 1863. — Letter to Governor Seymour 
{Private and Confidential^ 
Executive Mansion, Washington, March 23, 1863. 
His Excellency Governor Seymour. 20 

Dear Sir : You and I are substantially strangers, and 
I write this chiefly that we may become better acquainted. 
I, for the time being, am at the head of a nation which is 
in great peril, and you are at the head of the greatest 
State of that nation. As to maintaining the nation's life 25 
and integrity, I assume and believe there cannot be a 
difference of purpose between you and me. If we should 
differ as to the means, it is important that such difference 



132 Addresses and Letters 

should be as small as possible ; that it should not be en- 
hanced by unjust suspicions on one side or the other. 
In the performance of my duty the co-operation of your 
State, as that of others, is needed — in fact, is indis- 

5 pensable. This alone is a sufficient reason why I should 
wish to be at a good understanding with you. Please 
write me at least as long a letter as this, of course saying 
in it just what you think fit. 

Yours very truly, 

10 A. Lincoln. 

July 4, 1863. — Announcement of News from 
Gettysburg 

Washington, July 4. 10.30 a.m. 

The President announces to the country that news from 

15 the Army of the Potomac, up to 10 p. m. of the 3d, is 

such as to cover that army with the highest honour, to 

promise a great success to the cause of the Union, and 

to claim the condolence of all for the many gallant fallen ; 

and that for this he especially desires that on this day He 

20 whose will, not ours, should ever be done be everywhere 

remembered and reverenced with profoundest gratitude. 

A. Lincoln. 

July 13, 1863. — Letter to General Grant 
Executive Mansion, Washington, July 13, 1863. 

25 Major-General Grant. 

My dear General: I do not remember that you and I 
ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful 1 



Addresses and Letters 133 

acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you 
have done the country. I wish to say a word further. 
When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I 
thought you should do what you finally did — march the 
troops across the neck, run the batteries with the trans- s 
ports, and thus go below ; and I never had any faith, 
except a general hope that you knew better than I, that 
tlie Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could succeed. 
When you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, 
and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and 10 
join General Banks, and when you turned northward, 
east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now 
wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you 
were right and I was wrong. 

Yours very truly, 15 

A. Lincoln. 

August 17, 1863. — Letter to J. H. Hackett 
I Executive Mansion, Washington, August 17, 1863. 
James H. Hackett, Esq. 

My dear Sir : Months ago I should have acknowledged 20 
the receipt of your book and accompanying kind note ; 
and I now have to beg your pardon for not having done so. 

For one of my age I have seen very little of the drama. 
The first presentation of " Falstaif " I ever saw was yours 
here, last winter or spring. Perhaps the best compliment 25 
I can pay is to say, as I truly can, I am very anxious to 
see it again. Some of Shakespeare's plays I have never 
read ; while others I have gone over perhaps as frequently 



134 



Addresses and Letters 



as any unprofessional reader. Among the latter are 
Lear, Richard Illy Henry VIII, Hamlet, and especially 
Macbeth. I think nothing equals Macbeth. It is wonder- 
ful. 
5 Unlike you gentlemen of the profession, I think the 
soHloquy in Hatnlet commencing " Oh, my offence is 
rank," surpasses that commencing "To be or not to be." 
But pardon this small attempt at criticism. I should like 
to hear you pronounce the opening speech of Richard 
lo ///. Will you not soon visit Washington again ? If you 
do, please call and let me make your personal acquaint- 
ance. 

Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 

15 October 26, 1863. — Letter transmitting Original 
Draft of Emancipation Proclamation 

Executive Mansion, Washington, October 26, 1863. 

Ladies having in Charge the Northwestern Fair 
for the Sanitary Commission, Chicago, Illinois: 

20 According to the request made in your behalf, the orig- 
inal draft of the Emancipation Proclamation is herewith 
enclosed. The formal words at the top and the conclu- 
sion, except the signature, you perceive, are not in my 
handwriting. They were written at the State Department, 

25 by whom 1 know not. The printed part was cut from a 
copy of the preliminary proclamation, and pasted on, 
merely to save writing. I had some desire to retain the 



Addresses and Letters 135 

paper ; but if it shall contribute to the relief or comfort 
of the soldiers, that will be better. 

Your obedient servant, 

A. Lincoln. 
November 2, 1863. — Letter to J. H. Hackett 5 
{Private) 
Executive Mansion, Washington, November 2, 1863. 
James H. Hackett. 

My dear Sir : Yours of October 22 is received, as also 
was in due course that of October 3. I look forward 10 
with pleasure to the fulfilment of the promise made in 
the former. 

Give yourself no uneasiness on the subject mentioned 
in that of the 2 2d. 

My note to you I certainly did not expect to see in 15 
print ; yet I have not been much shocked by the news- 
paper comments upon it. Those comments constitute a 
fair specimen of what has occurred to me through Hfe. 
I have endured a great deal of ridicule without much 
malice ; and have received a great deal of kindness, not 20 
quite free from ridicule. I am used to it. 

Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 

November 19, 1863. — Address at the Dedication of 

the Gettysburg National Cemetery 25 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth 

on this continent a new nation, conceived in Hberty, and 

dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 



136 Addresses and Letters 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether 
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedi- 
cated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle- 
field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion 
5 of that field as a final resting-place for those who here 
gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether 
fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot 
consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave 

10 men,* living and dead, who struggled here, have conse- 
crated it far above our poor power to add or detract. 
The world will little note nor long remember what we say 
here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is 
for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the un- 

15 finished work which they who fought here have thus far 
so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedi- 
cated to the great task remaining before us — that from 
these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that 
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devo- 

20 tion ; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall 
not have died in vain ; that this nation, under God, shall 
have a new birth of freedom ; and that government of the 
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish 
from the earth. 

25 March 4, 1864. — Memorandum about Churches 
I have written before, and now repeat, the United 
States Government must not undertake to run the 
churches. When an individual in a church or out of it 



Addresses and Letters 137 

becomes dangerous to the public interest he must be 
checked, but the churches as such must take care of 
themselves. It will not do for the United States to ap- 
point trustees, supervisors, or other agents for the churches. 
I add if the military have military need of the church 5 
building, let them keep it ; otherwise let them get out of 
it, and leave it and its owners alone except for causes that 
justify the arrest of any one. 



A. Lincoln. 



March 4, 1864. 



March 13, 1864. — Letter to M. P. Gentry 
Executive Mansion, Washington, March 13, 1864. 
Hon. M. p. Gentry. 

My dear Sir: Yours by the hand of General Grant is 
received. Of course I have not forgotten you. General 15 
Grant is hereby authorized, in his discretion, to send you 
South ; and it is rather my wish that he may find it not 
inconsistent with his view of the public interest to oblige 
you. Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 20 

March 18, 1864. — Remarks on closing a Sanitary 
Fair in Washington 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I appear to say but a word. 
This extraordinary war in which we are engaged falls 
heavily upon all classes of people, but the most heavily 25 
upon the soldier. For it has been said, all that a man 
hath will he give for his life ; and while all contribute of 



I 



138 Addresses and Letters 

their substance, the soldier puts his life at stake, and often 
yields it up in his country's cause. The highest merit, 
then, is due to the soldier. 

In this extraordinary war, extraordinary developments 

5 have manifested themselves, such as have not been seen 
in former wars ; and amongst these manifestations noth- 
ing has been more remarkable than these fairs for the 
reUef of suffering soldiers and their famihes. And the 
chief agents in these fairs are the women of America. 

10 I am not accustomed to the use of language of eulogy ; 
I have never studied the art of paying comphments to 
women ; but I must say, that if all that has been said by 
orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise 
of women were applied to the women of America, it 

15 would not do them justice for their conduct during this 
war. I will close by saying, God bless the women of 
America. 



April 5, 1864. — Letter to Mrs. Horace Mann 
Executive Mansion, Washington, April 5, 1864. 

20 Mrs. Horace Mann. 

Madam : The petition of persons under eighteen, 
praying that I would free all slave children, and the 
heading of which petition it appears you wrote, was 
handed me a few days since by Senator Sumner. Please 

25 tell these little people I am very glad their young hearts 
are so full of just and generous sympathy, and that, while 
I have not the power to grant all they ask, I trust they 



Addresses and Letters 139 

will remember that God has, and that, as it seems, He 
wills to do it. 

Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



April 18, 1864. — Address at Sanitary Fair in 5 
Baltimore 

Ladies and Gentlemen : Calling to mind that we are in 
Baltimore, we cannot fail to note that the world moves. 
Looking upon these many people assembled here to serve, 
as they best may, the soldiers of the Union, it occurs at 10 
once that three years ago the same soldiers could not so 
much as pass through Baltimore. The change from then 
till now is both great and gratifying. Blessings on the 
brave men who have wrought the change, and the fair 
women who strive to reward them for it ! 15 

But Baltimore suggests more than could happen within 
Baltimore. The change within Baltimore is part only of 
a far wider change. When the war began, three years 
ago, neither party, nor any man, expected it would last 
till now. Each looked for the end, in some way, long 20 
ere to-day. Neither did any anticipate that domestic 
slavery would be much affected by the war. But here we 
are ; the war has not ended, and slavery has been much 
affected — how much needs not now to be recounted. 
So true is it that man proposes and God disposes. 25 

But we can see the past, though we may not claim to 
have directed it ; and seeing it, in this case, we feel more 
hopeful and confident for the future. 



140 Addresses and Letters 

The world has never had a good definition of the word 
liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in 
want of one. We all declare for liberty ; but in using 
the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With 
5 some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as 
he pleases with himself, and the product of his labour : 
while with others the same word may mean for some 
men to do as they please with other men, and the prod- 
uct of other men's labour. Here are two, not only differ- 

10 ent, but incompatible things, called by the same name, 
liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the 
respective parties, called by two different and incompat- 
ible names — liberty and tyranny. 

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, 

15 for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, 
while the wolf denounces him for the same act, as the 
destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black 
one. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed 
upon a definition of the word liberty ; and precisely the 

20 same difference prevails to-day among us human creatures, 
even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. 
Hence we behold the process by which thousands are 
daily passing from under the yoke of bondage hailed by 
some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as 

25 the destruction of all liberty. Recently, as it seems, the 
people of Maryland have been doing something to define 
liberty, and thanks to them that, in what they have done, 
the wolf's dictionary has been repudiated. 

It is not very becoming for one in my position to make 



" Addresses and Letters 141 

speeches at great length; but there is another subject 
upon which I feel that I ought to say a word. 

A painful rumour — true, I fear — has reached us of the 
massacre by the rebel forces at Fort Pillow, in the west 
end of Tennessee, on the Mississippi River, of some three 5 
hundred coloured soldiers and white officers, who had just 
been overpowered by their assailants. There seems to 
be some anxiety in the public mind whether the govern- 
ment is doing its duty to the coloured soldier, and to the 
service, at this point. At the beginning of the war, and 10 
for some time, the use of coloured troops was not contem- 
plated ; and how the change of purpose was wrought I 
will not now take time to explain. Upon a clear con- 
viction of duty I resolved to turn that element of strength 
to account ; and I am responsible for it to the American 15 
people, to the Christian world, to history, and in my final 
account to God. Having determined to use the negro as 
a soldier, there is no way but to give him all the protection 
given to any other soldier. The difficulty is not in stating 
the principle, but in practically applying it. It is a mis- 20 
take to suppose the government is indifferent to this 
matter, or is not doing the best it can in regard to it. 
We do not to-day know that a coloured soldier, or white 
officer commanding coloured soldiers, has been massacred 
by the rebels when made a prisoner. We fear it, — 25 
believe it, I may say, — but we do not know it. To take 
the life of one of their prisoners on the assumption that 
they murder ours, when it is short of certainty that they 
do murder ours, might be too serious, too cruel, a mistake. 



142 Addresses and Letters 

We are having the Fort Pillow affair thoroughly investi- 
gated ; and such investigation will probably show conclu- 
sively how the truth is. If after all that has been said it 
shall turn out that there has been no massacre at Fort 
5 Pillow, it will be almost safe to say there has been none, 
and will be none, elsewhere. If there has been the 
massacre of three hundred there, or even the tenth part 
of three hundred, it will be conclusively proved ; and 
being so proved, the retribution shall as surely come. It 
10 will be matter of grave consideration in what exact course 
to apply the retribution; but in the supposed case it 
must come. 



April 30, 1864. — Letter to General U. S. Grant 
Executive Mansion, Washington, April 30, 1864. 

15 Lieutenant- General Grant : 

Not expecting to see you again before the spring cam- 
paign opens, I wish to express in this way my entire satis- 
faction with what you have done up to this time, so far 
as I understand it. The particulars of your plans I 

20 neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and 
self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude 
any constraints or restraints upon you. While I am very 
anxious that any great disaster or capture of our men in 
great numbers shall be avoided, I know these points are 

25 less likely to escape your attention than they would be 
mine. If there is anything wanting which is within my 



Addresses and Letters 143 

power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now, 

witli a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you. 

Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



May 14. 1864. — Endorsement of Letter of Governor 5 
Carney dated May 13, 1864 

The within letter is, to my mind, so obviously intended 
as a page for a political record, as to be difficult to answer 
in a straightforward, businesslike way. The merits of the 
Kansas people need not to be argued to me. They are 10 
just as good as any other loyal and patriotic people, and 
as such, to the best of my ability I have always treated 
them, and intend to treat them. It is not my recollec- 
tion that I said to you Senator Lane would probably op- 
pose raising troops in Kansas because it would confer 15 
patronage upon you. What I did say was, that he would 
probably oppose it because he and you were in a mood 
of each opposing whatever the other should propose. I 
did argue generally, too, that in my opinion there is not 
a more fooHsh or demoralizing way of conducting a po- 20 
litical rivalry than these fierce and bitter struggles for 
patronage. 

As to your demand that I will accept or reject your 
proposition to furnish troops, made to me yesterday, I 
have to say I took the proposition under advisement, in 25 
good faith, as I believe you know ; that you can with- 
draw it if you wish ; but while it remains before me, I 



144 Addresses and Letters 

shall neither accept nor reject it until, with reference to 
the public interest, I shall feel that I am ready. 
Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 

5 November 21, 1864. — Letter to Mrs. Bixby 

Executive Mansion, Washington, November 21, 1864. 
Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts. 

Dear Madafn : I have been shown in the files of the 
War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of 
10 Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who 
have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how 
weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which 
should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so 
overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to 
15 you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of 
the Republic they died to save. I pray that our heav- 
enly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereave- 
ment, and leave you only the cherished memory of the 
loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours 
20 to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of free- 
dom. 

Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 

Abraham Lincoln. 

March 4, 1865. — Second Inaugural Address 

25 Fellow-countrymen : At this second appearing to take 
the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion 
for an extended address than there was at the first. Then 



Addresses and Letters 



45 



a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pur- 
sued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration 
of four years, during which public declarations have been 
constantly called forth on every point and phase of the 
great contest which still absorbs the attention and en- 5 
grosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could 
be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all 
else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to 
myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and en- 
couraging to all. With high hope for the future, no 10 
prediction in regard to it is ventured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, 
all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending 
civil war. All dreaded it — all sought to avert it. While 
the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, 15 
devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, in- 
surgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it with- 
out war — seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide 
effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; 
but one of them would make war rather than let the na- 20 
tion survive ; and the other would accept war rather than 
let it perish. And the war came. 

One-eighth of the whole population were coloured slaves, 
not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in 
the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a pecul- 25 
iar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, 
somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpet- 
uate, and extend this interest was the object for which 
the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; 

SELEC. FROM LINCOLN — lO 



146 Addresses and Letters 

while the government claimed no right to do more than 
to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. 

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or 
the duration which it has already attained. Neither an- 

5 ticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, 
or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each 
looked for an easier triumph, and a result less funda- 
mental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and 
pray to the same God ; and each invokes his aid against 

10 the other. It may seem strange that any men should 
dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their 
bread from the sweat of other men's faces ; but let us 
judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both 
could not be answered — that of neither has been an- 

15 swered fully. 

The Almighty has his own purposes. " Woe unto the 
world because of offences ! for it must needs be that 
offences come ; but woe to that man by whom the offence 
Cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is 

20 one of those offences which, in the providence of God, 
must needs come, but which, having continued through 
his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he 
gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the 
woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we 

25 discern therein any departure from those divine attributes 
which the believers in a living God always ascribe to 
him? Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — 
that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. 
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled 



Addresses and Letters 147 

by the bondmen's two hundred and fifty years of unre- 
quited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood 
drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with 
the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it 
must be said, " The judgements of the Lord are true and s 
righteous altogether." 

With malice toward none ; with charity for all ; with 
firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let 
us strive on to finish the work we are in ; to bind up the 
nation's wounds ; to care for him who shall have borne 10 
the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all 
which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace 
among ourselves, and with all nations. 

April ii, 1865. — Last Public Address 

We meet this evening not in sorrow, but in gladness of 15 
heart. The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, 
and the surrender of the principal insurgent army, give 
hope of a righteous and speedy peace, whose joyous 
expression cannot be restrained. In the midst of this, 
however. He from whom all blessings flow must not be 2a 
forgotten. A call for a national thanksgiving is being 
prepared, and will be duly promulgated. Nor must those 
whose harder part gives us the cause of rejoicing be over- 
looked. Their honours must not be parcelled out with 
others. I myself was near the front, and had the high 25 
pleasure of transmitting much of the good news to you ; 
but no part of the honour for plan or execution is mine. 



1 48 Addresses and Letters 

To General Grant, his skilful officers and brave men, all 
belongs. The gallant navy stood ready, but was not in 
reach to take active part. 

By these recent successes the reinauguration of the 

5 national authority — reconstruction — which has had a 
large share of thought from the first, is pressed much 
more closely upon our attention. It is fraught with great 
difficulty. Unlike a case of war between independent 
nations, there is no authorized organ for us to treat with 

10 — no one man has authority to give up the rebellion for 
any other man. We simply must begin with and mould 
from disorganized and discordant elements. Nor is it a 
small additional embarrassment that we, the loyal people, 
differ among ourselves as to the mode, manner, and 

15 measure of reconstruction. As a general rule, I abstain 
from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing 
not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly 
offer an answer. In spite of this precaution, however, it 
comes to my knowledge that I am much censured for some 

20 supposed agency in setting up and seeking to sustain the 
new State government of Louisiana. 

In this I have done just so much as, and no more than, 
the public knows. In the annual message of December, 
1863, and in the accompanying proclamation I presented 

25 a plan of reconstruction, as the phrase goes, which I 
promised, if adopted by any State, should be acceptable to 
and sustained by the executive government of the nation. 
I distinctly stated that this was not the only plan which 
might possibly be acceptable, and I also distinctly protested 1 



Addresses and Letters 149 

that the executive claimed no right to say when or whether 
members should be admitted to seats in Congress from 
such States. This plan was in advance submitted to the 
then Cabinet, and distinctly approved by every member 
of it. One of them suggested that I should then and in 5 
that connexion apply the Emancipation Proclamation to 
the theretofore excepted parts of Virginia and Louisiana ; 
that I should drop the suggestion about apprenticeship for 
freed people, and that I should omit the protest against 
my own power in regard to the. admission of members to 10 
Congress. But even he approved every part and parcel 
of the plan which has since been employed or touched by 
the action of Louisiana. 

The new constitution of Louisiana, declaring emancipa- 
tion for the whole State, practically applies the proclama- 15 
tion to the part previously excepted. It does not adopt ap- 
prenticeship for freed people, and it is silent, as it could 
not well be otherwise, about the admission of members to 
Congress. So that, as it applies to Louisiana, every mem- 
ber of the Cabinet fully approved the plan. The message 20 
went to Congress, and I received many commendations 
of the plan, written and verbal, and not a single objection 
to it from any professed emancipationist came to my 
knowledge until after the news reached Washington that 
the people of Louisiana had begun to move in accordance 25 
with it. From about July, 1862, 1 had corresponded with 
different persons supposed to be interested [in] seeking a 
reconstruction of a State government for Louisiana. When 
the message of 1863, with the plan before mentioned, 



150 Addresses and Letters 

reached New Orleans, General Banks wrote me that he 
was confident that the people, with his military co-opera- 
tion, would reconstruct substantially on that plan. I 
wrote to him and some of them to try it. They tried it, 
5 and the result is known. Such has been my only agency 
in getting up the Louisiana government. 

As to sustaining it, my promise is out, as before stated. 
But as bad promises are better broken than kept, I shall 
treat this as a bad promise, and break it whenever I shall 

10 be convinced that keeping it is adverse to the public in- 
terest ; but I have not yet been so convinced. I have been 
shown a letter on this subject, supposed to be an able 
one, in which the writer expresses regret that my mind 
has not seemed to be definitely fixed on the question 

IS whether the seceded States, so called, are in the Union or 
out of it. It would perhaps add astonishment to his 
regret were he to learn that since I have found professed 
Union men endeavouring to make that question, I have 
purposely forborne any public expression upon it. As 

20 appears to me, that question has not been, nor yet is, a 
practically material one, and that any discussion of it, 
while it thus remains practically immaterial, could have 
no effect other than the mischievous one of dividing our 
friends. As yet, whatever it may hereafter become, that 

25 question is bad as the basis of a controversy, and good for 
nothing at all — a merely pernicious abstraction. 

We all agree that the seceded States, so called, are out 
of their proper practical relation with the Union, and that 
the sole object of the government, civil and miUtary, in re- 



Addresses and Letters 151 

gard to those States is to again get them into that proper 
practical relation. I believe that it is not only possible, 
but in fact easier, to do this without deciding or even con- 
sidering whether these States have ever been out of the 
Union, than with it. Finding themselves safely at home, 5 
it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever 
been abroad. Let us all join in doing the acts necessary 
to restoring the proper practical relations between these 
States and the Union, and each forever after innocently 
indulge his own opinion whether in doing the acts he 10 
brought the States from without into the Union, or only 
gave them proper assistance, they never having been out 
of it. The amount of constituency, so to speak, on which 
the new Louisiana government rests, would be more sat- 
isfactory to all if it contained 50,000, or 30,000, or even 15 
20,000, instead of only about 12,000, as it does. It is 
also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is 
not given to the coloured man. I would myself prefer 
that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on 
those who serve our cause as soldiers. 20 

Still, the question is not whether the Louisiana govern- 
ment, as it stands, is quite all that is desirable. The 
question is, will it be wiser to take it as it is and help to 
improve it, or to reject and disperse it? Can Louisi- 
ana be brought into proper practical relation with the 25 
Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new 
State government? Some twelve thousand voters in the 
heretofore slave State of Louisiana have sworn allegiance 
to the Union, assumed to be the rightful political power 



152 Addresses and Letters 

of the State, held elections, organized a State government, 
adopted a free-State constitution, giving the benefit of 
public schools equally to black and white, and empower- 
ing the legislature to confer the elective franchise upon the 
5 coloured man. Their legislature has already voted to ratify 
the constitutional amendment recently passed by Con- 
gress, abolishing slavery throughout the nation. These 
12,000 persons are thus fully committed to the Union c^nd 
to perpetual freedom in the State — committed to the 

10 very things, and nearly all the things, the nation wants — 
and they ask the nation's recognition and its assistance 
to make good their committal. 

Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to 
disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say to the 

15 white man : You are worthless or worse ; we will neither 
help you, nor be helped by you. To the blacks we say : 
This cup of liberty which these, your old masters, hold to 
your lips we will dash from you, and leave you to the 
chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in 

20 some vague and undefined when, where, and how. If this 
course, discouraging and paralyzing both white and black, 
has any tendency to bring Louisiana into proper practical 
relations with the Union, I have so far been unable to 
perceive it. If, on the contrary, we recognize and sustain 

25 the new government of Louisiana, the converse of all this 
is made true. We encourage the hearts and nerve the arms 
of the 12,000 to adhere to their work, and argue for it, and 
proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, 
and ripen it to a complete success. The coloured man, too, 



Addresses and Letters 153 

in seeing all united for him, is inspired with vigilance, and 
energy, and daring, to the same end. Grant that he de- 
sires the elective franchise, will he not attain it sooner by 
saving the already advanced steps toward it than by running 
backward over them ? Concede that the new government 5 
of Louisiana is only to what it should be as the egg is to the 
fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg 
than by smashing it. 

Again, if we reject Louisiana we also reject one vote in 
favour of the proposed amendment to the national Consti- 10 
tution. To meet this proposition it has been argued that 
no more than three-fourths of those States which have not 
attempted secession are necessary to validly ratify the 
amendment. I do not commit myself against this further 
than to say that such a ratification would be questionable, 15 
and sure to be persistently questioned, while a ratification 
by three-fourths of all the States would be unquestioned 
and unquestionable. I repeat the question : Can Louisi- 
ana be brought into proper practical relation with the 
Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new 20 
State government? What has been said of Louisiana will 
apply generally to other States. And yet so great pe- 
culiarities pertain to each State, and such important and 
sudden changes occur in the same State, and withal so 
new and unprecedented is the whole case that no exclu- 25 
sive and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed as to 
details and collaterals. Such exclusive and inflexible plan 
would surely become a new entanglement. Important 
principles may and must be inflexible. In the present 



154 Addresses and Letters 

situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make 
some new announcement to the people of the South. I 
am considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied 
that action will be proper. 



NOTES 

The heavy marginal figures stand for page, and the lighter ones for line. 

25 : I. Letter to Robert Allen. During the summer of 1836 
Lincoln was vigorously campaigning for re-election to the Illinois 
State Legislature. N. W. Edwards was another of the nine candi- 
dates from Sangamon County on the Whig ticket. 

26 : 22. Speech in United States House of Representatives. 
Lincoln was elected to Congress in November, 1846, and took his 
seat in December, 1847. The speech here given was the first 
speech of any length that he made in Congress. It has to do with 
the great question of that session, the Mexican War. The Whig 
party, to which Lincoln belonged, maintained that the United 
States was not justified in declaring war, but since the war had 
begun, supplies should be voted to prosecute it successfully. 

The direct cause of the war was the annexation of Texas in 1845. 
Tex^ had gained her independence from Mexico with the aid of 
many citizens of the United States who had settled there, and had 
been recognized as an independent state by the United States, 
England, and other countries. Mexico, however, did not yield her 
claim, and took offence when Texas was annexed to the United 
States. In fact, it was the signal for war, but neither side wished 
to be the aggressor. President Polk maintained that Mexico had 
begun the war ; Lincoln took the Whig view, and criticized the 
President for beginning it. 

43 : 29. William H. Herndon. William H. Herndon was a law 
partner of Lincoln's, and for many years a warm personal friend. 
He became one of Lincoln's biographers. 

45 : 16. Address at Cooper Institute, New York. By a series 
155 



156 Notes 

of debates with Stephen A. Douglas in 1858, Lincoln had become 
a national figure. Before this time he had a considerable follow- 
ing in the West, but now the East was beginning to take an inter- 
est in the new leader from Illinois. Accordingly, the following 
year, he was invited to speak at Cooper Union, where so many 
doctrines have been presented by all sorts of men. It was an 
opportunity that Lincoln gladly accepted, for he was anxious for 
an introduction to the East. William CuUen Bryant, the poet and 
editor of the New York Evening Post, introduced the speaker, 
who was awkward and somewhat embarrassed. He won his audi- 
ence, however, and unconsciously put himself one step nearer the 
presidency. 

The speech was a defence of the new Repubhcan party, which 
had been formed largely out of the old Whig party since Lincoln 
had served his term in Congress. 

55 : 19. The Dred Scott case. Dred Scott, a slave, had been 
taken by his owners into a state where slavery was prohibited, and 
later taken back to a slave state. He then sued for freedom. The 
case became very famous because of its bearing on the slavery 
question. The court dealt with the rights of slaves, and called the 
Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. Thus the fires of sectional 
feelings were fanned into flames, 

63: 17. Harper's Ferry ! John Brown! John Brown, a radical 
Abolitionist, led a band of less than twenty into Harper's Ferry, 
Va., October 16, 1859, and seized the national arsenal. He sup- 
posed that it would be a signal for a general uprising of slaves, but 
it served only further to embitter the South. He was captured, 
tried for treason, and executed December 2, 1859. 

65 : 3. Southampton insurrection. An insurrection in 1831 in 
Southampton County, Va., led by a fanatic slave named Turner, 
which resulted in the massacre of fifty-three whites and the execu- 
tion of seventeen negroes. 

65 : 21. The slave revolution in Hayti. An insurrection of 
negroes in 1791 in which Toussaint I'Ouverture took an active part 



Notes 157 



65 : 23. The gunpowder plot. A band of men in the reign of 
James I, believing that the Catholics were unjustly persecuted, formed 
a plot to blow up the House of Parliament and kill the King, min- 
isters, and members of Parliament. One of the conspirators warned 
a friend, and the plot was discovered. Guy Fawkes was found in 
charge of the powder in the cellar under the Parliament building, 
and so the anniversary, November 5, is called Guy Fawkes Day. 

67 : 3. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon. Felice Orsini, an 
Italian who was convinced that Napoleon III was the greatest 
obstacle to the liberation of Italy, went to Paris, and January, 1858, 
attempted to assassinate the Emperor and Empress by throwing 
a bomb. The attempt failed, though several bystanders were killed, 
but Orsini was captured and executed. 

74 : 22. W. H. Seward. William H. Seward was Lincoln's 
chief competitor for the presidential nomination in i860, and was 
the choice of the East. He had had far greater advantages of edu- 
cation, had been Governor of New York, and had served as United 
States Senator from New York since 1849. Lincoln appointed 
him Secretary of State, a position which he held with great distinc- 
tion through Lincoln's and Johnson's terms of office. His position 
in Washington and the East, his ability, and his training, made 
many feel that he should have had the nomination for President. 
This feeling accounts for the gossip over whether Lincoln would 
off^er him the chief place in the cabinet, and whether, if it should 
be offered him, Seward would accept it. 

76 : I. Farewell Address. It is difficult for the younger gener- 
ations to realize the excitement that prevailed after the election of 
a Republican President in November, i860. The war cloud was 
growing very black. Bitter things were said of Lincoln. The 
danger to his personal safety was thought to be very great. This 
speech was made from the platform of the train that was about to 
take him and his family toward Washington. It was spoken to his 
friends and neighbours in Springfield who had come to see him off. 
Burdened with a sense of his responsibility, and realizing some of 



158 Notes 

the dangers that he was to go through, he spoke with a seriousness 
and simplicity that were both beautiful and pathetic. 

76 : 18. Address in Independence Hall. On his way from 
Springfield to Washington, Lincoln passed through Philadelphia, 
where he was asked to speak at a flag-raising in Independence 
Hall. Before the formal occasion he seems to have made this 
impromptu speech, which shows plainly his feeling in regard to the 
problems that he was facing. 

81 : 29. A disruption of the Federal Union. South Carolina, 
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had 
already passed acts of secession. 

88 : 4. The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution. Article 
IV, section 2, clause 3. 

91 : 22-29. The poetical thought of the last paragraph of the 
First Inaugural was suggested by Mr. Seward, but the beautiful 
form in which it stands was Mr. Lincoln's work, and is said to have 
been written just as he was called upon to join the inaugural 
procession. 

92 : I. Schuyler Colfax. A statesman from Indiana, who 
served fourteen years in Congress, four years as Speaker of the 
House, and was Vice-President from 1869 to 1873. 

93 : I. Secretary Seward's Memorandum: — 

SOME THOUGHTS FOR THE PRESIDENT'S CONSIDER- 
ATION 

April i, 1861 

First. We are at the end of a month's administration, and yet 
without a policy, either domestic or foreign. 

Second. This, however, is not culpable, and it has even been 
unavoidable. The presence of the Senate, with the need to meet 
applications for patronage, have prevented attention to other and 
more grave matters. 

Third. But further delay to adopt and prosecute our policies 



Notes 159 



for both domestic and foreign affairs would not only bring scandal 
on the Administration, but danger upon the country. , 

Fourth. To do this, we must dismiss the applicants for office. 
But how? I suggest that we make the local appointments forth- 
with, leaving foreign or general ones for ulterior and occasional 
action. 

Fifth. The policy at home. I am aware that my views are singu- 
lar and perhaps not sufficiently explained. My system is built upon 
this idea as a ruling one, namely, that we must 

Change the question before the public from one upon slavery, or 
about slavery, for a question upon union or disunion. 

In other words, from what would be regarded as a party question 
to one of Patriotism or Union. The occupation or evacuation of 
Fort Sumter, although not in fact a slavery or a party question, is 
so regarded. "Witness the temper manifested by the Republicans 
in the free states, and even by the Union men in the South. 

I would therefore terminate it as a safe means for changing the 
issue. I deem it fortunate that the last Administration created the 
necessity. 

For the rest, I would simultaneously defend and re-enforce all the 
forts ill the Gulf, and have the war ships recalled from foreign sta- 
tions to be prepared for a blockade. Put the island of Key West 
under martial law. 

This will distinctly raise the question of Union or Disunion. 
I would maintain every fort and possession in the South. 

For Foreign Nations 

I would demand explanations from Spain and France categori- 
cally, at once. 

I would seek explanations from Great Britain and Russia, and 
send agents into Canada, Mexico, and Central America, to rouse a 
vigorous continental spirit of independence on this continent against 
European intervention. 



i6o Notes 

And, if satisfactory explanations are not received from Spain and 
France, would convene Congress and declare war against them. 

But whatever policy we adopt, there must be energetic prosecu- 
tion of it. 

For this reason it must be somebody's business to pursue and 
direct it incessantly. 

Either the President must do it himself, and be all the while active 
in it, or 

Devolve it on some member of his Cabinet. Once adopted, 
debates on it must end, and all agree and abide. It is not in my 
especial province. But I neither seek to evade or assume respon- 
sibility. 

97 : lo. Gustavus V. Fox. A naval officer who fitted out in 
New York a relief expedition for Fort Sumter, which was unsuc- 
cessful. He later became Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and 
served in that capacity through the war. 

98:12. Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth. Colonel Ellsworth organ- 
ized a regiment from among the volunteer firemen of New York, 
and became its colonel, after having gained much renown for hav- 
ing organized and drilled a company of " Chicago Zouaves " in 
1859-60. In May, 1861, he was shot in Alexandria, Va., by the 
proprietor of the Marshall House, for tearing down a Confederate 
flag which flew above the house, and was buried from the White 
House with military ceremony. His grave is at Mechanicsville, N. Y. 

99 : 16. General Fremont. A distinguished American ex- 
plorer, soldier, and aspirant to the presidency. He was at this 
time in command of the Western Department of the Army, with 
headquarters at St. Louis. 

100 : 16. 0. H. Browning. A friend and political associate of 
Lincoln's in Illinois, who afterward became Secretary of the Interior 
and Attorney-General under President Johnson. 

104 : 13. General McClernand. A general in the Union army, 
who, like Lincoln, was born in Kentucky, brought up in Illinois, 



Notes i6i 

served in the Black Hawk War, became member of Congress, and 
practised law in Springfield, Illinois. 

105 : 17. General G. B. McClellan. Commander of the Army 
of the Potomac, and general in chief of the Union forces from 
November I, 186 1, to March 11, 1862, There was great criticism 
of him because he did not act more promptly and march on 
Richmond. 

107 : 2. Compensated Emancipation. President Lincoln was 
trying to settle the slavery question by getting the states and the 
United States to co-operate in freeing the slaves by purchasing them 
from their masters. 

no : 15. Domestic affliction. In February, 1862, Mr. and Mrs. 
Lincoln lost their son Willie by death, and were kept very anxious 
over the serious illness of their son Thomas, or Tad, as he was 
called. 

120 : I. J. M. Clay. The youngest of the five sons of Henry 
Clay. 

120 : 16. Horace Greeley. Horace Greeley was the editor of 
the New York Tribune, and gained a tremendous influence during 
the war through his paper, which was very widely read. 

126 : 13. Carl Schurz. A German by birth, he was an Ameri- 
can by adoption. He was prominent among the leaders of the 
North, and became a member of President Hayes' Cabinet in 1877. 

131 : 17. Governor Seymour. The Democratic Governor of 
New York. 

132 : 23. Letter to General Grant. General Grant had just 
won brilliant success at Vicksburg, had received the surrender of 
General Pemberton with 30,000 men, July 4, 1863, and had been 
made major-general in the United States Army. 

134 : 19. Sanitary Commission. The Sanitary Commission 
was an organization formed during the Civil War for the relief of 
sick and wounded soldiers. 

^35 ' 5- J- H. Hackett. An American comedian, 1800-1871, 
and father of James K. Hackett. 

SELEC. FROM LINCOLN — II 



1 62 Notes 

135 : 25. Gettysburg National Cemetery. A part of the field 
where the great battle of Gettysburg was fought, July 1-3, 1863, 
was set apart as a national cemetery. The President was invited 
to be present, but the speaker of the day was Edward Everett, 
a great orator from Massachusetts. To-day Lincoln's speech is 
known everywhere, while Everett's is forgotten. 

137 : II. M. P. Gentry. A statesman from Tennessee who had 
been in Congress with Lincoln some fifteen years before this letter. 

139 : 7. Calling to mind that we are in Baltimore. Baltimore 
had been a hotbed of southern sympathy. It was here that the 
first blood of the war was shed while northern soldiers were march- 
ing toward Washington in 1861. 

141 : 4. Fort Pillow. The reports of the so-called massacre at 
Fort Pillow never agreed. It is true that many lost their lives, but 
whether in defending the fort or by slaughter after the surrender 
may be open to doubt. 

146 : 12. Let us judge not, that we be not judged. — Matthew 
vii. I. 

146 : 16. "Woe unto the world because of offences," etc. — 
Matthew xviii. 7. 

147 : 5. " The judgements of the Lord are true and righteous 
altogether." — Psalms xix. 9. 

147 : 14. Last Public Address. This address was given at the 
White House where a great crowd had gathered to offer congratu- 
lations on the close of the war. 



COLLINS'S ALGEBRAS 

By JOSEPH V. COLLINS, Ph.D., Professor of Mathe- 
matics, State Normal School, Stevens Point, Wisconsin. 



Practical Elementary Algebra jJJl.oo 

Practical Algebra, First Year Course 85 



THE Practical Elementary Algebra aims to make 
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^ A very large number of exercises and problems, many 
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The exercises are simple and easily solved, and because 
of their large number the course may be made both varied 
and elastic. A noteworthy feature of the book is the large 
amount of interesting and illuminating historical matter, in- 
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^ The First Year Course possesses the same helpful fea- 
tures as the larger book, but some of the more difficult 
exercises, and some chapters on advanced work, have been 
omitted, and other sections have been modified and sim- 
plified to fit the course for first year students. 



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COMPOSITION-RHETORIC 

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put together with a more scrupulous regard for the teacher's 
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the written work evenly throughout the year, so that the 
task of theme-correcting is lightened as much as possible. 
The experienced teacher will find in the complete series of 
alternative lessons abundant opportunities to emphasize spe- 
cial points, and the inexperienced teacher will find in the 
specific directions for each lesson as definite a guide to 
successful teaching as a textbook alone can furnish. Every 
lesson in the book has been made to stand a four-fold test; 
its ability to meet the needs of the intelligent student, the 
dull student, the expert teacher, and the novice. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S.86) 



COMPOSITION-RHETORIC 

(Steps in English Series) 

By THOMAS C. BLAISDELL, Ph.D., recently Pro- 
fessor of English in the Normal High School, Pittsburg, Pa. 

;^l.OO 



THIS book, which aims to teach young people to 
write effectively, is suited for use in any secondary 
school. Its ingenious method of treatment, its 
fresh and interesting character, its great simplicity and 
suggestiveness, will prove stimulating and inspiring to 
every student. The work lays a foundation for the 
appreciation of literature. 

^[ Models from the master writers are furnished and pupils 
are asked to use their own experiences as working material. 
They are taught to write accurately by being trained to 
recognize, and thus to avoid, their errors. Principles are 
studied only when they are encountered, each pupil being 
obliged to learn merely those of which he is ignorant. 
^ The most important qualities which characterize liter- 
ature are each taken up in turn and considered. Selections 
from the works of famous writers are inserted at frequent 
intervals for purposes of illustration, and it is shown by 
analysis how they appeal to the feelings, and why they 
attain the various results necessary to an interesting 
expression of their thoughts. 

^ When their methods have been discovered and suffi- 
ciently illustrated, the learner is asked to use them in 
writing about familiar experiences. At first compositions 
of only a few paragraphs in length are required, but later 
the character sketch, the short story, and the essay are 
taken up. Letter- writing is emphasized throughout the book. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S.85) 



A PUNCTUATION PRIMER 

By FRANCES M. PERRY, Associate Professor 
Rhetoric and Composition, Wellesley College. 

^0.30 



THE Punctuation Primer is a manual of first principles 
or essentials simply and systematically presented; it 
is not an elaborate treatise on punctuation. It offers 
a few fundamental principles that are flexible and com- 
prehensive, and easily understood and remembered. The 
meaning of the text to be punctuated and the grammatical 
structure of the sentence are made the bases for general- 
ization and division. 

^ The discussion is taken up under two main divisions: 
The terminal punctuation of sentences, and the punctuation 
of elements within sentences. Under punctuation of 
elements within sentences, the punctuation of principal 
elements, of dependent elements, of coordinate elements, 
of independent elements, and of implied elements are 
considered in the order given. 

^ In addition, several important related topics are treated, 
such as paragraphing, quotations, capitalization, compound 
words, word divisions, the uses of the apostrophe, the 
preparation and the correction of manuscript, conventional 
forms for letters, the use of authorities in writing themes, 
the correction of themes, and the making of bibliographies. 
^ Throughout the carefully selected examples make clear 
the meaning of the text, while the exercises provided at 
each stage of the work afford the student practice in the 
correct application of the principles. 

^ Though written prunarily to meet the needs of college 
freshmen, the primer is an excellent manual for high schools. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S.84) 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 
ENGLISH PROSE 

Critical Essays 

Edited with Introductions and Notes by THOMAS H. 
DICKINSON, Ph.D., and FREDERICK W. ROE, 
A.M., Assistant Professors of English, University of 
Wisconsin. Price, ^i.oo. 



THIS book for college classes presents a series of ten 
selected essays, which are intended to trace the 
development of English criticism in the nineteenth 
century. The essays cover a definite period, and exhibit 
the individuality of each author's method of criticism. In 
each case they are those most typical of the author's crit- 
ical principles, and at the same time representative of the 
critical tendencies of his age. The subject-matter provides 
interesting material for intensive study and class room dis- 
cussion, and each essay is an example of excellent, though 
varying, style. 

^ They represent not only the authors who write, but 
the authors who are treated. The essays provide the 
best things that have been said by England's critics on Swift, 
on Scott, on Macaulay, and on Emerson. 

^ The introductions and notes provide the necessary bio- 
graphical matter, suggestive points for the use of the teacher 
in stimulating discussion of the form or content of the essays, 
and such aids as wall eliminate those matters of detail that 
might prove stumbling blocks to the student. Though the 
essays are in chronological order, they may be treated at 
random according to the purposes of the teacher. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S.8o) 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



AMERICAN POEMS $0.90 

With notes and biographies. By AUGUSTUS 
WHITE LONG, Preceptor in English, Princeton 
. University, Joint Editor of Poems from Chaucer to 
Kipling 

THIS book is intended to serve as an introduction to the 
systematic study of American poetry, and, therefore, 
does not pretend to exhaustiveness. All the poets 
from I 776 to 1900 who are worthy of recognition are here 
treated simply, yet suggestively, and in such a manner as to 
illustrate the growth and spirit of American life, as ex- 
pressed in its verse. Each writer is represented by an 
appropriate number of poems, which are preceded by brief 
biographical sketches, designed to entertain and awaken 
interest. The explanatory notes and the brief critical 
comments give much useful and interesting information. 



MANUAL OF AMERICAN LITERATURE, $0.60 

By JAMES B. SMILEY, A.M., Assistant Principal 
of Lincoln High School, Cleveland, Ohio 

THE aim of this little manual is simply to open the way 
to a study of the masterpieces of American literature. 
The treatment is biographical rather than critical, as 
the intention is to interest beginners in the Hves of the great 
writers. Although the greatest space has been devoted to 
the most celebrated writers, attention is also directed to 
authors prominent in the early history of our country, and 
to a few writers whose books are enjoying the popularity 
of the moment. Suggestions for reading appear at the end 
of the chapters. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S. 98) 



NEW ROLFE SHAKESPEARE 

Edited by WILLIAM J. ROLFE, Litt.D, 
40 volumes, each, Jo. 5 6 



THE popularity of Rolfe's Shakespeare has been ex- 
traordinary. Since its first publication in 1870-83 
it has been used more widely, both in schools and 
colleges, and by the general reading public, than any simi- 
lar edition ever issued. It is to-day the standard annotated 
edition of Shakespeare for educational purposes. 
^ As teacher and lecturer Dr. Rolfe has been constantly in 
touch with the recent notable advances made in Shakespear- 
ian investigation and criticism ; and this revised edition he 
has carefully adjusted to present conditions. 
^ The introductions and appendices have been entirely re- 
written, and now contain the history of the plays and poems; 
an account of the sources of the plots, with copious extracts 
from the chronicles and novels from which the poet drew 
his material ; and general comments by the editor, with 
selections from the best English and foreign criticism. 
^ The notes are very full, and include all the historical, 
critical, and illustrative material needed by the teacher, as 
well as by the student, and general reader. Special feat- 
ures in the notes are the extent to which Shakespeare is 
made to explain himself by parallel passages from his works j 
the frequent Bible illustrations; the full explanations of allu^ 
sions to the manners and customs of the period; and descrip- 
tions of the localities connected with the poet' s life and works. 
^ New notes have also been substituted for those referring 
to other volumes of the edition, so that each volume is now 
absolutely complete in itself. The form of the books has 
been modified, the page being made smaller to adjust them 
to pocket use. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S.97) 



INTRODUCTORY COURSE 
IN EXPOSITION 

By FRANCES M. PERRY, Associate Professor of 
Rhetoric and Composition, Wellesley College. 

^i.oo 



EXPOSITION is generally admitted to be the most 
commonly used form of discourse, and its successful 
practice develops keen observation, deliberation, 
sound critical judgment, and clear and concise expression. 
Unfortunately, however, expository courses often fail to 
justify the prevailing estimate of the value of exposition, 
because the subject has been presented in an unsystem- 
atized manner w^ithout variety or movement. 
^ The aim of this book is to provide a systematized 
course in the theory and practice of expository w^riting. 
The student will acquire from its study a clear under- 
standing of exposition — its nature ; its two processes, 
definition and analysis ; its three functions^ impersonal 
presentation or transcript, interpretation, and interpretative 
presentation ; and the special application of exposition in 
literary criticism. He will also gain, through the practice 
required by the course, facility in writing in a clear and 
attractive way the various types of exposition. The 
volume includes an interesting section on literary criticism. 
^ The method used is direct exposition, amply reinforced 
by examples and exercises. The illustrative matter is 
taken from many and varied sources, but much of it is 
necessarily modern. The book meets the needs of 
students in the final years of secondary schools, or the 
first years of college. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

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INTRODUCTION TO 
AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Hy BRANDER MATTHEWS, A.M., LL.B., Profes- 
sor of Literature, Columbia University. Price, ^i.oo 



EX-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, in a most ap- 
preciative review in T^he Bookman, says : ** The 
book is a piece of work as good of its kind as any 
American sciiolar has ever had in his hands. It is just 
the kind of book that should be given to a beginner, be- 
cause it will give him a clear idea of what to read, and of 
the relative importance of the authors he is to read ; yet it 
is much more than merely a book for beginners. Any 
student of the subject who wishes to do good work here- 
after must not only read Mr. Matthews' book, but must 
largely adopt Mr. Matthews' way of looking at things, 
for these simply written, unpretentious chapters are worth 
many times as much as the ponderous tomes which con- 
tain what usually passes for criticism ; and the prmciples 
upon which Mr. Matthews insists with such quiet force 
and good taste are those which must be adopted, not 
only by every student of American writings, but by every 
American writer, if he is going to do what is really worth 
doing. ... In short, Mr. Matthews has produced 
an admirable book, both in manner and matter, and has 
made a distinct addition to the very literature of which he 
writes. ' ' 

^ The book is amply provided with pedagogical featureSo 
Each chapter includes questions for review, bibliograph- 
ical notes, facsimiles of manuscripts, and portraitSj, while 
at the end of the volume is a brief chronology of American 
literature. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S. 91) 



A HISTORY OF ENGLISH 
LITERATURE 

By REUBEN POST HALLECK, M.A. (Yale), 
LouisN-ille Male High School. Price, $1.25 



HALLECK' S HISTORY OF ENGLISH LIT- 
ERATURE traces the development of that litera- 
ture from the earliest times to the present in a 
concise, interesting, and stimulating manner. Although the 
subject is presented so clearly that it can be readilv com- 
prehended by high school pupils, the treatment is sufficiently 
philosophic and suggestive for any student beginning the 
study. 

^ The book i= a histor\* of literature, and not a mere col- 
lection of biographical sketches. Only enough of the facts 
of an author's life are given to make students interested in 
him as a personality, and to show how his environment 
affected his work. Each author's productions, their rela- 
tions to the age, and the reasons why they hold a position 
in literature, receive adequate treatment. 
^ One of the most striking features of the work consists in 
the way in which literary movements are clearly outlined at 
the beginning of each chapter. Special attention is given to 
the essential qualities which differentiate one period from 
another, and to the animating spirit of each age. The author 
shows that each period has contributed something definite 
to the literature of England. 

^ At the end of each chapter a carefully prepared list of 
books is given to direct the student in studying the original 
works of the authors treated. He is told not only what to 
read, but also where to find it at the least cost. The book 
contains a special literary map of England in colors. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

CS.90) 



HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND 
AMERICAN LITERATURE 

By CHARLES F. JOHNSON, L.H.D., Professor of 
English Literature, Trinity College, Hartford. Price, 
;gi.25 

A TEXT-BO OK for a year's course in schools and 
colleges, in which English literary history is regarded 
as composed of periods, each marked by a definite 
tone of thought and manner of expression. The treatment 
follows the divisions logically and systematically, without 
any of the perplexing cross divisions so frequently made. 
It is based on the historic method of study, and refers 
briefly to events in each period bearing on social devel- 
opment, to changes in religious and political theory, 
and even to advances in the industrial arts. In addi- 
tion, the book contains critiques, general surveys, sum- 
maries, biographical sketches, bibliographies, and suggestive 
questions. The examples have been chosen from 
poems which are generally familiar, and of an illustrative 
character. 



JOHNSON'S FORMS OF ENGLISH POETRY 

;^i.oo 

THIS book contains nothing more than every young person should 
know about the construction of English verse, and its main 
divisions, both by forms and by subject-matter. The historkal 
development of the main divisions is sketched, and briefly illustrated by 
representative examples ; but the true character of poetry as an art and 
as a social force has always been in the writer's mind. Only the 
elements of prosody are given. The aim has been not to make the 
study too technical, but to interest the student in poetry, and to aid him 
in acquiring a well-rooted taste for good literature. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S. lOl) 



AU6 t2 »^* 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



^UG 12 '^'^ 



^ibrar 







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